Trinity 7/St. Mark 8:1-9

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, [Jesus] called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” And he asked them, “How many loaves do you

have?” They said, “Seven.” And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the

crowd. And they had a few small fish.
And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

On two occasions in the Bible Jesus fed large numbers of people; one time five thousand, and on the occasion of our text, four thousand. Through these miracles we get to see the glory of God on display in Jesus, certainly. That’s what’s most obvious, isn’t it? Who else could do such an amazing thing? Who else could take seven loaves of bread and two small fish (in our text) and multiply them to feed more than four thousand people? In addition to God’s glory on display, we see also God’s compassion (the word Jesus uses in our text, in fact; He says, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat).”

The next thing Jesus says after that sentence is what we want to talk about today. That next thing He says can be used to demonstrate something even greater that’s going on here. If I send them away hungry to their homes, He says, they will faint on the way. Now, He didn’t mean anything other than He said. He was talking about physical hunger like we experience in the morning, and midday, and evening. People’s bodies need to be fed on bread (and fruits, and vegetables, and meats) so they’re nourished. The people in the text had come a long way from home, and not had anything to eat for quite some time. They needed physical nourishment. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He said they would faint on the way home if they weren’t fed.

But another truth can be brought out of those words (and maybe even more meaningfully if we reduce it somewhat, to): If I send them away hungry…they will faint. So, we might look at this text this morning considering a theme like,

Jesus feeds the hungry

1. Those who otherwise would faint

2. Those who with His feeding are satisfied

Those who otherwise would faint

St. Paul says about his readers in our epistle lesson, that they have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. The people in our text had left their homes and sought out Jesus because they were in need of more than food for their bodies. Harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36)—that’s how Jesus would come to describe them closer to His crucifixion.

According to the Bible, every person is in need of being—as Paul says in our epistle lesson—set free from sin. Guilt harasses us. We sin. We can’t help ourselves. We know that God is angry with our sin. Every person is in need of a certain sort of nourishment that must be put there by God Himself. The nourishment is the relief from this guilt that harasses us.

Jesus wasn’t a restauranteur in His earthly life. There wasn’t a neon sign that said EAT AT JESUS’S, pointing the way to where He was preparing food for people. They were going to Him for a different reason. Though these people might not have been entirely sure about this, their reason for coming to Him was related to the confession that Simon Peter would make one time: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68).” They were seeing Him in the same way the crowds did on Palm Sunday, who shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest (Matthew 21:9)!” They knew they were in need. They saw Him as the one who just might be the one talked about in that Old Testament quotation, the one God was sending to meet their need.

You bring your children for Baptism for the same reason these people had gone to Jesus like this in our text, don’t you? You know that the Bible demonstrates that every person is guilty—having inherited a sinful nature, and being him or herself a sinner. And you know that in Baptism God puts His arms of grace around that person. The Holy Spirit is working in that Sacrament—that means through which God gives His grace, putting faith in that person to recognize Jesus as the solution to guilt.

Those who with His feeding are satisfied

We've talked about those who otherwise would faint—noting that every person needs to nourished by God. We talk now, about those who with His feeding are satisfied. If we’re thinking of Jesus’ words from our text in this spiritual kind of way (If I send them away hungry…they will faint), we might say at this point that our children are nourished in this way in Baptism. Of course, we think similarly about the Lord’s Supper through which Jesus feeds us in this spiritual way along with our physical eating. Through the receiving of bread and wine that have have joined with His true body and blood, He nourishes us, strengthening our faith, comforting us, even—as He says—administering to us what removes our sins. Active in these Sacraments is God’s powerful Word through which the Spirit works. Even before He satisfied their physical hunger, Jesus was satisfying the spiritual hunger of those people in our text by preaching His Word to them.

You can imagine the relief it must have been to them to hear this Word of God’s grace from Jesus, because you deal with the same burdens they did. No doubt, someone in that crowd, for instance, had said something to her mother that was thoughtless and cruel. It had felt great in the moment. She’d really made her point! Her sinful nature loved it. But now she was very sad about it (which is what always happens). It’s like St. Paul says in our Epistle lesson: What fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? She’d been lured into something by Satan, like her first mother Eve had been. But now that she’d done what promised such satisfaction and joy, she realized (like Eve did) that sin isn’t ever where we’re going to find joy that lasts; it will only ever be a path to guilt and regret. And in that regret, in that enslavement as Paul describes it, in that harassment as Jesus describes it, where does a person turn for true relief?

Part of the harassment that this crowd had been enduring was happening from what we might think of as an unlikely source. They were being led by religious leaders whose idea of how to inherit God’s kingdom (how to have this relief from guilt) was entirely opposed to the means God had established. They were the blind leading the blind, burdening people with the thought of earning heaven rather than receiving it as God’s free gift. Imagine if someone were telling over and over, that you just have to stop sinning. You have to be better than that. You have to somehow make up for that cruel thing you said to your mother, and make sure you never ever let anything like that happen again. And that’s the solution to being on the right side of God. Imagine the burden of that impossible exhortation! You’d be forever chasing the horizon. You’d be pursuing what can’t be had. And you’d be considering along the way, the consequence in store.

But in our text, we see the One Who satisfies more than physical hunger. This One Who’s miracle feeds the multitude sets free those who are enslaved to sin. He’s the One God sent for that purpose. There has never been any need for anyone to say to Him, you just have to stop sinning, because He’s the One Who is without sin. He can’t be better than that. There’s nothing for Him to make up for. His perfect treatment of His mother in this world stands in the place of the sin of that person in the crowd, and of yours and mine. Your harassment from guilt is put away in Him. You don’t inherit God’s kingdom by pursuing impossible perfection; you inherit it by having Jesus’ perfection placed upon you. There isn’t any more burden. You aren’t earning heaven. Jesus has provided it for you. In His righteous blood you have God’s forgiveness.

So, as you are sent away today, you need not be hungering as far as your relationship with God is concerned. You have been nourished with what God has provided—His Spirit-filled powerful Word and Supper. You need not faint under the burden of guilt. You need not languish under the harassment of Satan with his threats of the consequences to come from your sins. You have come to Jesus and had all of it removed as the free gift of God. In this spiritual way, you have received Jesus’ feeding. You have experienced God’s compassion in Him. Jesus will always be the solution to this need you have. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen.

St Matthew 5:20-26

[Jesus said] “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Our hymn does a good job of explaining the issue of sin in our relationship to God. And just in case we would be inclined to start thinking about it, and considering various ways to justify ourselves (‘cause we do that), making light of our sins (comparing them to others’ sins, for instance; why should I be treated the same as someone who killed someone?—that kind of thing), the hymn writer notes what makes us sinners in the first place.

It isn’t a lapse of judgment in this or that moment of life;

it isn’t “making poor choices,” like is often said today.

In Adam We Have All Been One. The hymn writer is talking about the Bible’s doctrine called original sin. We are sinners because we have inherited what Adam was (or, what he became when he sinned). We inherited being sinners. We inherited the inability for ourselves not to be sinners, and the guilt, then, that comes from being sinners.

In pointing out to His listeners in our text, that they’re sinners (necessary if they’re going to be of a mind to be saved), Jesus uses the example of how we tend to treat one another. The hymn writer addresses this in his second verse:

We fled Thee, and in losing Thee

We lost our brother too;

Each singly sought and claimed his own;

Each man his brother slew [referring, apparently, to Cain’s killing of his brother Abel].

Slew is a form of the word slay or kill. This well-interprets Jesus’ statement in our text: everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. He’s comparing—in fact—being angry with our brother to murder. Of course, St. John speaks similarly: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15). So, part of being sinners is this tendency we have to be self-serving—to claim our own, as the hymn writer says; to treat each other badly.

And when God is thinking about sin, He isn’t really putting it on a scale, like we might want to do. He isn’t saying, this sin is a really serious one; this sin doesn’t really matter very much. Sin is sin. It’s our condition as sinners that matters; not how serious (or minor) we think our sins are.

Even when it comes to Jesus’ example, we tend to think, Well, I don’t do such a bad job of treating people well. I’m

• generous with my possessions. I’m

• kind to my family and friends. I’m

• known as a pretty nice person in my workplace, I think.

You know what? —I think I’ve got this! Jesus’ example doesn’t apply to me; just other people. And, while all of those things we said about ourselves might be true (you might have been nodding along as I read them), Jesus says in our text that even all that doesn’t cover it.

That’s He means by, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Scribes and Pharisees tended to think all of those nice  things about themselves. Others thought it of them too. But Jesus is saying that as good a picture as they were presenting of themselves, it isn’t enough to make them right before God. And anyone thinking he must only live up to their standard is mistaken. In Adam We Have All Been One. Those men had inherited the same sinfulness. They were guilty like anyone else. Jesus was saying, you can’t use them as a standard; they’re in the same boat. The Psalmist writes:

Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you (143:2).

In Adam we have all been one,

One huge rebellious man;

We all have fled that evening voice

That sought us as we ran.

The solution to the issue of sin in our relationship to God can’t be to tell him He’s mistaken in how He assesses us. It can’t be to say to God, Yeah, you know, I hear what you’re saying…but I’ve been going over some things, and I think it might be necessary for you to reconsider your position on the matter. After all, on March 14, 2014, I sacrificed being to work on time so I could help a little old lady across the street. That’s kindness. In Adam we have all been one. If we are to be judged by God on who and what we are, then it’s on the basis of the sinful nature we have inherited from Adam (the sinful lives we’ve rendered too, if we’re being honest with ourselves—an episode or two of helping little old ladies across the street not withstanding).

The hymn writer, in verse 3, gets to what the answer needs to be:

But Thy strong love, it sought us still

And sent Thine only Son

That we might hear His shepherd’s voice

And, hearing Him, be one

Jesus is the answer, the solution to the issue of sin in our relationship to God. He’s the One Who loved and saved us all when we loved Him not—in the hymn writer’s words. He’s the Great Good Shepherd. He hasn’t inherited the nature we have, that demonstrates itself in unkindness and hatred. He prayed for the forgiveness of His murderers on the cross! He’s the One Who descended from His throne on high to take the place of sinners, making up for their hatred with His perfect love that caused Him even to bear the shame of the cross.

But that sinful nature we have is persistent. It keeps wanting to be a Pharisee and a scribe. We keep wanting to think of ourselves as being in a better position than most people. We want to celebrate somehow, that more of the time, or to at least a little greater extent we do what God wants instead of plowing headlong into what He doesn’t want. Jesus’ message in this text is designed to tell us, Yeah, don’t even bother with that sort of thinking. God looks at the whole world and sees sinners. And sinners are condemned in so far as their own merits are concerned. We wouldn’t ever want God to play that game with us, where we try to convince Him that, while others need His saving, we…maybe don’t. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you are even more perfect than they try to convince the world they are, you will certainly have removed yourself from God’s kingdom, that means.

So, the hymn writer rightly concludes in the 5th verse:

Send us Thy Spirit, teach us truth;

Thou Son, O set us free

From fancied wisdom, self-sought ways,

And make us one in Thee.

Send us Thy Spirit—“Do what you’ve promised to do when we hear Your Word,” in other words. Break this spell that we’re under, that imagines our own goodness; our own fitness for your Kingdom. Let us see our need. Move us to humble ourselves before you so that Your Son can set us free. He’s our only hope. Jesus is the One whose righteousness has been placed upon us to cover our guilt. That’s our solution—not making a run at exceeding the righteousness of Pharisees and scribes; but rather, Christ.

Since He has used our unkindness to our neighbor as His example of our sin, Jesus takes it a step further, offering this advice: So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Jesus knows He’s telling them something that’s going to hit home. We have experienced disharmony with people, haven’t we? It’s one of the things about this life that clearly illustrates our situation, clearly illustrates that in Adam We Have All Been One.

We’re reminded of it in the last of Jesus’ parting words of encouragement in our text. In that portion of His illustration He mentions an accuser, and a judge, and a penalty. Not only might that be our situation in this world (depending on what direction our sins might take us), but much of that reminds us again of the issue of sin in our relationship to God. A reconciliation in that relationship could never be brought about by us coming to terms with God. We could only be reconciled with Him in Christ, Who lived perfectly in our place, and Who made payment for our sins with His innocent sacrifice. In Him your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. In Him you are fit to enter God’s kingdom. In Him there is no one to accuse you. He has taken every accusation of yours, suffered every penalty. The issue of sin in your relationship to God is forever solved in Jesus. To His Name be glory both now and forever. Amen.

Exodus 20:1-17

God spoke all these words, saying, “I am
the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Romans 6:3-11

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from
sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Trinity 5-St. Luke 5:1-11 (2022)

On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on [Jesus] to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

When my family and I were traveling in the last several days, we went again to the area in which I grew up, in North Texas. As I was driving around reminiscing, I was asking myself many times, Why is this so important to me?—seeing the old places, connecting the dots of what’s still like I remembered it, what’s changed. More on that to come…

At the end of our text, St. Luke says Simon and his fellow fishermen/fellow future disciples left everything and followed Jesus;

Have you done that?

Though St. Luke might not have been speaking philosophically like that (he might just have been talking about them leaving behind nets and boats, and fishing articles), sometimes we read it philosophically like that, don’t we (I do, anyway). In that bigger sense too, it’s what they did. Considering what happened after this moment (three years of training under him so they might bring His message to the world), we read it, that they were leaving more behind than those things related to their work; they were leaving behind a life without Christ for one with Him. They were leaving behind a life that concerns itself primarily with the machinations of this passing world for one in which God’s kingdom is the most important thing.

Have you done that?

We're going to talk about what it means to do that.

Jesus would say some time later: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).” —Meaning: if you’re going to do it, do it. There’s no partway in this. In our Old Testament lesson, when God says through the prophet Jeremiah, I will bring [the people of Israel] back to their own land that I gave to their fathers, in the most important sense of it, He is talking about an eternal land. He’s taking about His eternal kingdom that gathers up all who will allow themselves to be gathered, so that they might inherit the paradise that God has prepared for them (when He says things like, behold, the days are coming, we know He is talking in this Messianic kingdom kind of way).

Traveling back to North Texas. Driving around reminiscing. Why do I feel compelled to go back over that ground? No doubt psychologists would have a certain explanation. My simple conclusion is that a part of the way God made us is to value the things we remember, the feelings we felt. We value what we think of as home (which might be combination of many places we’ve been, actually), even though we go on from there to other things in life that are greater and more important. We feel grounded in a certain way in that time and place. It’s an important part of us being human, that we want to feel this connection to whatever sense we have of where we came from.

And yet, the Bible’s message over and over and over, is that there is something even more important than that. Where we came from is more than our old neighborhood. Always present along with my excitement about seeing the old places was the realization that this is a world that moves on toward an end. This isn’t what lasts. It doesn’t last just as surely as many of the places I spent time at and valued at one time are long gone, replaced with other things. Were we to consider this to be the final destination, we would be clinging to what passes away.

The writer to the Hebrews made a big point about this when he talked about the believers of the past—Abraham, and the like, who were looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God (11). It isn’t that they despised where they’d been in this world. It isn’t that they didn’t reminisce and have nostalgic feelings for them (like we do); but they knew they were just passing through those places on their way to the greater place.

In our text, it seemed pretty important to the men in the boats that they catch fish. In their conversation about it, Simon gives Jesus a fisherman’s most discouraging report: “we toiled all night and took nothing!” But a fisherman’s got to catch fish. The way he lives his life depends on it. He sells the fish so he has money to live; that’s how it works. That’s the reality of this life, isn’t it? It’s the practical concern that every one of us faces. We have all sorts of those things that we face here.

And we’re not told to ignore them, or to make light of them. We aren’t told they aren’t important. Jesus doesn’t tell Simon that it’s ridiculous that he work so hard at catching fish, or that he be disappointed at not catching any. He doesn’t say it isn’t important that people catch fish. In fact, He kind of deals with that important practical concern first, and then directs Him to what’s even more important.

In terms of dealing with the practical concern, Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Of course, Simon’s immediate recollection at those words would be of a night just passed in which many hours of work have been entirely without result.

I’ve been out fishing and caught nothing a number of times. It was boring and disappointing; but it was only for the potential fun of it in the first place. My livelihood didn’t depend on it. I wasn’t going to go home and face devastated long faces who had been relying on what represented income at the end of that night. Not the same for them, though. Those hours out in the boat must have been dreadful ones. No doubt the fishermen were asking themselves how many more nights they could afford to have this happen, and then considering what a new plan for feeding their loved ones would have to be.

We might well imagine that Simon is reluctant about dragging the boat back out there after the nets have been washed and everything’s been put away; but he has respect for this one he calls Master. “At your word," he says, “I will let down the nets.” And, of course, there’s a miracle—so many fish, they can’t even deal with them all.

Can God handle the concerns you have in this world? Yes. This says, yes, He can. It said it to Simon, and it says it to you.

Simon’s reaction to the great catch of fish is always an interesting portion of this text, isn’t it? He doesn’t jump up and down with excitement. He doesn’t come running and hug Jesus. If anything, he keeps at a distance. He’s afraid. He drops to his knees. The reality of his place before God [brought into sharp focus in this moment] is even more frightening to him than the practical consequences of not catching fish. We said we were going to talk about what it means to leave everything and follow Jesus. The humility that Simon demonstrates in this text is an essential component of it. No one can really follow Jesus unless he has left behind the illusion that he doesn’t belong on his knees before the perfect God. Every one of us does; don’t ever forget that. We stand as an indication of this humility during the Confession of Sins; the Church used to kneel before that went out of fashion.

This same sort of scenario was played out at your Baptism (or at your conversion through hearing God’s Word). The Holy Spirit’s first order of business was to present the true God to you in all His glory (isn’t that what Jesus also does with the great catch of fish in the text?), and have you cower before Him like Simon does here. Because even in your infancy, you were a sinner before the perfect God (in sin my mother conceived me, the Psalmist writes [51:5]). You’d inherited a sinful flesh. You had no business before God if your situation was going to continue as it had been. The Psalmist comments on this in a way, when he says, If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? He means that if God were to consider what we are by nature when determining if we can be with Him or not, none of us would be there. If you were holding onto a sense that you were good enough in your own right to stand before God, you’d never be interested in His saving; so it was necessary that you put this thing all of us have—this natural self-security—away as the first order of business.

But God didn’t intend that you remain terrified of Him, like Simon was in the text. The Spirit presented God’s grace to you in your Baptism, and a change occurred. You came to know of God’s mercy for sinners to be found in His perfect Son Who made atonement for sins.

Have you left everything and followed Jesus? We’ve been talking about the need to prioritize God’s kingdom that lasts over this world that doesn’t (though we live this life; we live every moment of it with all its importance). The most important thing the disciples were leaving their fishing to go and do, was listen to Jesus—listen to His Word, that He would go on to call the one thing that is necessary (Luke 10:42).

Neglecting that necessary Word might be one of the things Simon was thinking about when he lamented to the Lord, I am a sinful man. The worry of catching enough fish might have kept him from it. Your worry about your own concerns in this life has kept you from devoting yourself to that necessary Word as well. It has felt sometimes, like you didn’t have any choice but to neglect God’s Word. The devil is so good at getting us to think that way. When we confessed this morning that we have sinned against [God] by thought, word, and deed, this neglect of His Word was one of the things on the list of those sins—this prioritizing of this passing kingdom over His eternal one. It’s one of the things that demonstrates that we can’t stand before Him on our own merits.

The One who demonstrates His godly glory in our text with a great miracle can stand before the perfect God because He is God. His earthly human life was entirely without sin. He would never have any reason to feel like Simon felt, or like we feel when we consider our sins. He stands before God in the judgment in our place, making us perfect before God.

Hear Jesus’ words to Simon this morning, and consider them as said also to you: “Do not be afraid.” Jesus is your Savior. There isn’t anything He can’t do to help you in this life, and more importantly, to bring you safely to the one that is eternal, in His kingdom.

That kingdom is the only lasting one. As important as it was for the men in our text to catch fish, even more important was following Jesus. At a certain point the last fish will have been caught, the last meal prepared, the last payment made for goods in this world. Our last breath will be breathed too. None of the things we toil at and concern ourselves with will be important then. But God’s kingdom remains. It doesn’t (like this world) move on toward an end. It truly lasts. Jesus is the One Who is worth leaving everything else to follow. To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

Other Lessons This Week:

Jeremiah 16:14-21

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

“Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
    my refuge in the day of trouble,
to you shall the nations come
    from the ends of the earth and say:
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
    worthless things in which there is no profit.

Can man make for himself gods?
    Such are not gods!”

“Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.”

1 Peter 3:8-15

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For

“Whoever desires to love life
    and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
    and his lips from speaking deceit;

let him turn away from evil and do good;
    let him seek peace and pursue it.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
    and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

[NO VIDEO AVAILABLE THIS WEEK, SORRY]

Romans 11:33-36

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Our text stands on its own as a powerful statement about the identity of God. We have this morning confessed the Athanasian Creed of the Christian Church, as we do on this Festival of the Holy Trinity each year. Our confessing of this creed reminds us of how Scripture reveals the true God. It’s even more explicit in this than the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds that we usually use (and that’s saying something!). In this creed theologians have carefully expressed that God is beyond our comprehension (we don’t have experience with anyone else who’s like this). He is three persons, but one God (Tri-une). None of the persons is greater or lesser than the others. Each is revealed to have different characteristics and emphases though. St. Paul concludes our text directing his readers to this God. To him be glory forever, he says.

But what Paul has said here is a concluding statement in a larger discussion.

Within that discussion he asks and answers a question he thinks might have occurred to his readers. The question: Has God rejected his people (Romans 11:1)?

He thinks it might occur to them to ask it because he has been discussing the fact that God’s people have been so unfaithful, like their ancestors in Elijah’s time (that prophet had complained to God, that His idolatrous people had killed all the rest of the prophets, and now were seeking his life also—1 Kings 19:10). And Paul is saying that the Israelites of his day are no better. They aren’t worshipping idols like their forbears; but they’ve made idols of themselves in a way—rejecting Jesus as Savior, and, as Paul says, seeking to establish their own [righteousness] (Romans 10:3). Their righteousness, they think, is in being circumcised, and in doing the works of the Law.

Proclaiming God’s glory in our text, Paul makes the statement:

Who has given a gift to [God] that he might be repaid? In other words: Who could be so righteous in himself that God owes him something?

Paul’s fellow Jews were thinking that being related to Abraham and doing good works were like gifts they were giving to God. And their presumption was that they’d obligated God to repay them for those gifts with eternal life in His kingdom. They had established their own righteousness, they thought (they were wrong).

This is the way God was seeing their “righteousness” (Paul says their wickedness is like what led God to say about the people of Isaiah’s time):

“All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people (Romans 10:21).”

God is the one who determines what makes a person righteous before Him, not people. He makes us righteous by giving us Christ’s righteousness to cover our guilt. He forgives us because of what Christ has done; it isn’t anything in us.

This desire of people to establish their own righteousness apart from Christ didn’t end with the Jews of Paul’s time. It’s our nature to do this. You have the same tendency. You have to be reminded each week, that when you stand before God in the judgment, nothing about your life is going to impress Him; only that Christ’s righteousness has been placed upon you (by Him) to cover your guilt. Your church attendance doesn’t make up for your sins. Neither do your acts of charity, or your good reputation in the community. The way Paul’s fellow Jews were seeing themselves (as all around good people) was kind of making them think they had all they needed. What’d they need a Savior for, when they were such apparently godly people? In fact: didn’t God owe them something for all this goodness?

When Paul makes the point he makes in our text, about no one being able to give a gift to God for which He must repay him, he’s reminding you of your real situation before God. He said it this way in one of his letters: You were dead in your trespasses and sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh (Colossians 2:13). He meant there was nothing his readers could do to get close to God’s kingdom as they were by nature. They were entirely lost so far as it depended on them. God has to do every bit of it.

That’s your situation too, and mine, according to our nature. Whenever you’ve thought for a moment that you were different from other people, that you belonged in God’s kingdom because of something you could bring forward (and that you were not entirely at God’s mercy, and in severest need of His undeserved love), you were kidding yourself, and you were treading the path that leads to hell. And if you tend even now, to think, Why am I wasting my time here? God and I are good. He sees what I have to offer. Then hear God’s words through the prophet Ezekiel in our Old Testament lesson: Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Hear Jesus tell Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson: unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. He meant by that, that what we are isn’t fit for God’s kingdom. He must change us, put Christ’s righteousness upon us, erase from the record what our own deeds have produced.

Paul has something else to say in this text. He has asked, Who has given [God] a gift that he might be repaid? He has echoed the sentiments of the Psalmist, who writes: Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you (143:2).

Also, now, he declares: How unsearchable are [God’s] judgments and how inscrutable his ways! On this day in which we reflect on the magnitude of God’s glory, we consider with Paul God’s incomprehensible grace.

The answer to Paul’s question of whether God has rejected His people is a resounding NO! In fact, Paul goes on to explain, God had an extraordinary plan to be merciful not only to His own covenant people, but also to others who had previously been outside of that covenant—the Gentiles. Astonishingly, it had been God’s plan—during a low ebb in the history of His own people (Abraham’s descendants), when they were uninterested in Him and His saving—to make Himself known to others. Every person in the world is in the same boat, after all, needing kindness from God, needing forbearance (patience while the Spirit works through the message about Him to bring people to faith). This God who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4) determined to go after those who hadn’t been seeking Him. And Paul even mentions that a by-product of this new outreach might just be that God’s covenant people would take a second look. They would be envious that what had been theirs was now going to someone else, and would grab ahold of it again. How unsearchable are [God’s] judgments and how inscrutable his ways! If someone were going to write a fiction of how God might operate, they wouldn’t write that!

The most important thing we see in this God Whose essence we have explored so extensively this morning is His grace toward sinners. This one Who devises intricate plans to save people from their sins is also the one Who is devoted to saving you from yours. You didn’t have any gift for God obligating Him to repay you, so He made His own Son that, offering Him as what makes you righteous to stand before Him in the judgment. That Son’s true righteousness stands in the place of whatever attempts you might have made to establish a false righteousness. He’s the One to Whom the Father would never have to say, Repent and turn from all your transgressions; so He can take yours upon Himself and make the payment. And He did, make the payment. Your sins are forgiven for His sake.

There’s that part at the end of the Athanasian Creed that sometimes confuses people—the part that says: And they that have done good will enter life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. By His grace, God is able and willing to see you before Him apart from your sins. He will see you as having put on the garment of Christ’s righteousness instead. And when He sees you that way He only sees the perfect life that Jesus lived for you. He only sees someone who has done good. You are represented by Christ before Him through faith. And that being the case, you enter into life everlasting, as the creed says. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways….to Him be glory forever. Amen.

OTHER LESSONS FOR THIS WEEK:

Ezekiel 18:30-33

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the LORD God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the LORD God; so turn, and live.

St. John 3:1-15

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he can- not enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Exordium

“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him.” Those words that begin the explanation of the Catechism’s Third Article of the Creed indicate to us the importance of what we observe this morning.

Our own reason is corrupted. Our first parents sinned. We inherited their sinfulness. We aren’t in a position according to our nature to stand before God in the judgment with a clean conscience. We can’t face Him the way we are by nature; His perfect justice would overwhelm us. We wouldn’t be fit for His kingdom. Our eternal situation would have to be hell’s punishment.

God provided a solution to our problem. Christ lived perfectly for us, and died to pay our price. His Resurrection opens the door for a resurrection of our own, and an ascension of our own to God’s eternal kingdom. God definitely wants us. That isn’t the problem. He so loved us that He gathered up ours and all the world’s guilt and put it on His own Son in an exchange—His righteousness for our guilt!

But our corrupt hearts aren’t naturally interested in this salvation. That’s what it means that by our own reason or strength we can’t believe in Jesus or come to Him. By nature, we would convince ourselves that we don’t need God or His saving, that we aren’t really all that bad, or that we can figure out our own way of salvation (that’s what our own reason or strength comes up with).

The next line of the Third Article’s Explanation sets us up for the focus of our festival service this morning: “But the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified, and kept me in the true faith just as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.” God addressed the problem of our hard hearts that would ignore His salvation with the Holy Ghost’s work through the Word and Baptism. We can’t make ourselves believe in God’s love and mercy in Christ; but He can. He comes to us through the ministry of His Word that took on a new urgency on a special day of Pentecost. He teaches us of our need—showing us our sins, and then our Savior Who removed them. See that Savior today, Whom the Holy Ghost proclaims in Word and Sacrament.

We sing together our Exordium hymn: O Light of God’s Most Wondrous Love.

Sermon

Acts 2:1-13

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

We’re going to look a little bit at the hymn again, like we did last week. Our chief hymn  was hymn #2—Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord (You can open that it you want to; it’s printed in the bulletin, of course). A couple of words in that first verse that stand out on this Festival of Pentecost: love, and unite. It’s written like a prayer. We’re asking the Holy Ghost to pour out God’s graces.

Whenever we hear that word grace, we’re reminded of why we gather in a place like this on a morning like this. It isn’t that there isn’t anything else to do. We’re here out of need, aren’t we? We need to be here (the word grace implies that). All of us are beneficiaries of undeserved love. We are receiving necessary things here.

God isn’t obligated to any of us. The so-called “Prodigal Son” in Jesus’ parable—as wrong as he was about many things was right in his assessment of his place before his father. He came to such a low point (having blown sinfully all of his early-gotten inheritance), that he determined to go back and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. (Luke 15:18-19).”’ Every person born in the natural way is in that same position before God. He requires absolute obedience (He requires that we be perfect like Him). But not one naturally born person is that.

The fact of all of these people gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost illustrates it. They have come from various places speaking various languages. We’re reminded of the Tower of Babel incident in the Old Testament, in which God confused the language of all the earth (Genesis 11). The people were wickedly plotting and scheming. God caused them to be unable to communicate with each other, and to be separated from each other. They divided themselves even further, battling against each other. So much suspicion and hatred exists between nations. It’s hard to imagine what could unify all of those people who live so differently from each other, speak so differently.

The Holy Ghost shows us in our text this morning. God’s love unites people. Thy fervent love to them impart, we ask the Holy Ghost in the hymn.

You might not even remember the time you became aware of God’s love. You might have been an infant held over a Baptismal font, sprinkled with water in the Triune God’s Name. You became aware of it so as to have faith while not even being able to communicate it in an intellectual sense. Or, it might have occurred to you later in life, having heard God’s powerful Word. In either case, you recognized that God loves you despite your sinfulness, because of Jesus. That’s what faith is: knowing (believing) that God loves you because Jesus has taken your guilt upon Himself, put His perfect life in place of your imperfect one—dying for you on a cross, so that you are forgiven. The Holy Ghost is the one Who worked through Baptism or through God’s Word to make you aware of God’s love. He poured out God’s graces upon you—on your mind and heart. He imparted God’s love to you.

In doing so, He united you with Himself. We use that word reconcile sometimes in talking about this. Through Christ’s blood, He brought you back together with Himself. Also, He united you with other people. This love that you share with them unites you. All of those different people on that first New Testament Pentecost—those ones divided from each other by place and by language and culture became united in Christian faith. You, here, this morning are united in that same faith. You have been expressing that unity as you have confessed together the words of the liturgy—the hymns, the Creed, the prayers. You will express it further in the Supper, when you receive together what Christ gives there—His true body and blood along with bread and wine. You need those things; and you’re gathered here together, united in His love—united in faith, to receive them from the Lord.

The second verse of the hymn emphasizes Jesus’ words from our Gospel lesson: the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

A few words in the second verse stand out in this regard: Word, Teach, and faith. This holy Light, Guide Divine (as the hymn writer calls him) is the the One through Whom we can believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, and come to Him. His power to do this is certainly on display in our text (the blowing of a violent wind from heaven, tongues of fire resting on each of those who were gathered). And the clearest demonstration of the Holy Ghost as teacher, as presenter of Christ is His use of Jesus’ apostles to preach His Word. Suddenly, they have power to communicate without the barrier of language. Everything they’re saying is being understood, though these who are present couldn’t speak to each other so as to be understood (at least in the languages of their homes). The Holy Ghost has made God’s Word available in this way.

But it’s more than that. That Word is a special word. It’s the Word that the Holy Ghost uses to perform an otherwise impossible task—getting sinners who naturally fight God to humble themselves before Him and receive from Him the mercy that He wants more than anything to give them. You’re here this morning because the Holy Ghost worked that miracle in your heart through the Word. He taught you to know your God aright, and call Him Father with delight. This is the faith that makes forgiveness yours, that brings you from eternal punishment and death to eternal life.

The hymn writer reminds us of the end of the Pentecost text when he says,

From ev’ry error keep us free. Let none but Christ our Master be. St. Luke records: Some, however, made fun of [the evangelizing apostles] and said, “They have had too much wine.”

The Holy Ghost works powerfully through God’s Word whenever it is preached. It always has the potential to bring blessing to its hearers. But it must find willing hearers if this is to be the case. Jesus talked about the seed of His Word being sown in places in which it could not bear fruit (Matthew 13). What a sad thing it is when God gathers His people together that He might pour out His necessary blessings to them, and His potent Word doesn’t find willing ears to hear it. Not a single one of us is without guilt in this; whether we got bored or distracted, interested in other things. Maybe it was that we had a problem with the speaker of the message, or with someone else who was hearing it with us. Maybe we had allowed other things in this world to become more important to us than God’s Word, and closed our ears to it. Maybe, for a time, we even became scoffers like those in the text who considered the Spirit-filled message of God’s Word to be nothing more important than the babbling of drunkards.

In the third verse the hymn writer makes it our prayer that the Holy Ghost impart to us strength in our weakness. His strengthening of us comes in the form of Him continually putting Christ before us. He’s the One Who did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. His perfect hearing of God’s Word removes from the record forever your neglect of it. When He said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear (Matthew 11:15), it wasn’t just words; it was what He was accomplishing for you as part of His perfect obedience. So then, when He took your punishment for sins, dying in your place, it truly made the payment. It bought your forgiveness. It made you able to say with confidence in the hymn: Through life and death to Thee, our Lord, ascend. In your guilt over neglecting God’s Word and over every other sin, see Christ as your solution.

See it because the Holy Ghost is showing it to you by means of God’s Word. Sent by Christ after His ascension, the Holy Ghost on Pentecost prepared Christ’s followers to proclaim Him to the world in an outpouring of God’s graces. That Word is powerful on your lips too, when the Holy Ghost gives you opportunity to share it with someone who might, through hearing and believing, be united with God and His people in His love. Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

This Week’s Other Lesson:

St. John 14:23-31

Jesus answered him, “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. 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.

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But 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 that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

Acts 1:1-11

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen. After His suffering, He showed Himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while He was eating with them, He gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

So when they met together, they asked Him, “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”

This is the Sunday on which we observe Jesus’ ascension. We referred to it when we confessed the Creed last Sunday. We said, [Jesus] ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. We’re going to be looking quite a bit at the hymn we’ve just sung—#388. You might be interested in having that open during this time.

Hail the day that sees him rise to his throne above the skies!—our hymn begins. The disciples were looking intently up into the sky as He was going because it was a very unusual sight! Three of the disciples had seen the Transfiguration—that had demonstrated to them Christ’s glory (the same clearly present here). But forgive them if they needed to pause and take in this most unexpected moment. The angel’s question: Why do you stand here looking into the sky?—isn’t to say they shouldn’t have been surprised by it as much as to say, What’s the point of laboring over this thing you’ve seen? You’ve seen Him do other amazing things, too. It’s time to get on with the mission for which the Lord has trained you these three years.

The mission is to proclaim this King of Heaven Who has now ascended to His throne above the skies. His kingly entrance on Palm Sunday had been a foreshadowing of a sort. He wasn’t to be what many in the crowd thought Him to be. He wasn’t going to ascend to a throne in a worldly kingdom (My kingdom is not of this world, He would tell Pilate—John 18:36). He would ascend to a throne above the skies.

And the hymn writer reminds us in this first verse what a dramatic rise this has been. This heavenly king is the Lamb for sinners giv’n. John the Baptist had called Him the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He is the one native to heaven, Who became by choice the sacrificial Lamb paying the price for all sinners (sent because God so loved the world—John 3:16). He stands in their place, convicted of their crimes, taking their punishment—taking your punishment, too.

The hymn writer quotes Psalm 24 in the beginning of the 2nd verse: Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in (Psalm 24:7). The disciples might have wondered for a moment just what they were seeing, with Jesus ascending up beyond the clouds. What they were seeing was the return of the King to His throne on high.

He had laid aside His godly glory for a time, using it only in certain moments out of compassion, and to demonstrate who He was. He had reclaimed His glory after rising from the dead. But still, for forty days He was appearing and disappearing from the disciples’ presence. He was preparing them to receive the Spirit—the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about, as He says in our text. He wasn’t yet fully exalted. His ascension to the Father’s right hand in the kingdom is that. That’s the glorious triumph that awaits. The heavenly kingdom takes this King of glory in, now that He has conquered death and sin. He has conquered it by living a life of complete obedience, and then by taking that flawless life, and offering it up as the payment for all other peoples’ flawed lives. His rising from death has been a defeating of death for all. So, He returns now to heaven, with His work accomplished.

But these disciples who witness this sight shouldn’t see it as their Lord abandoning them. When the hymn writer says, Yet He loves the earth He leaves, and, Still He calls mankind His own, he refers, probably, to Jesus’ glorious words, I go to prepare a place for you, and, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:3). That word harbinger that comes up in the hymn, in verse 5 means that Jesus appears in His kingdom first, to be followed by all believers—by you and me. Those words about preparing a place for his disciples aren’t the words of someone who’s abandoning them. Those words are spoken by the most faithful of friends. His ascending from this world into His kingdom is for their eternal good.

Our Catechism talks about what Jesus does at the right hand of God in His kingdom. You might have wondered about that (what is He doing up there?). It says that He–also according to His human nature–rules in divine glory over all things for the benefit of His Church.

Included in that is that He is interceding for us, Paul writes (Romans 8:34). It’s hard to even imagine the significance of that, isn’t it? He’s pleading our case before the Father—His prevailing death He pleads—the hymn writer says. He’s reminding the Father that all sins are atoned for in His blood. That’s why Paul says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). See, He shows the prints of love—prints, like scars from where the nails pierced His hands as He died for our sins, I think is what the hymn writer means by that statement.

When the hymn writer talks about us remaining with Him there, partners of [His] endless reign, we’re certainly reminded about Paul referring to believers as heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). There Thy face unclouded see—St. John said something in his first letter that these words certainly refer to: Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).

If you imagine yourself among the disciples who were present on that day on which Jesus ascended into heaven, it should occur to you what Jesus would be wanting you to take away from that sight. In the text, when Jesus and His disciples have met together here for this last time, they ask Him, “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Now, this at least seems to indicate an ongoing misunderstanding on their part as to what Jesus’ plan all along has been (even though He has told them several times that He is going to the Father). Their looking intently up into the sky could be explained by this confusion. It’s a reminder of the need that we have as ones who have inherited our parents’ sinful nature. Jesus had described the people of Jerusalem as harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). It describes us too, according to that nature. We needed Jesus to be (in the hymn writer’s words) harbinger of human race. We needed Him to prepare our way, and to lead us to God’s eternal kingdom, because reaching it was impossible for us otherwise. We need Him still for us to intercede, pleading His prevailing death—making His righteousness to be what God sees in us rather than our sinfulness.

It is what He sees, you know. The sins that bother you; they have been removed in Christ. You’re forgiven for them. You need not dwell on them anymore. If you imagine yourself among the disciples who were present on that day, you don’t look intently up into the sky in confusion or uncertainty; you look there in anticipation of what you are to inherit on whatever day God has in mind. It is yours because your Savior is there, and has prepared it for you. He is working there continually for you, as the One Who calls you His own.

Let us pray [from Laache, p.148]: O Lord, You are seated at the right hand of majesty in heaven, to save us forever and to make us happy in Your kingdom. Be mindful of this even when we are not mindful of ourselves. Save us powerfully by Your might, and give us heavenly bliss, not for our sakes, but for your own sake. For the kingdom we are to inherit is Yours. Yours is the power to lead us into it. And Yours shall forever be all honor and glory, when we, Your redeemed, shall be happy in Your kingdom. Amen. Hear us, for the sake of Your eternal love and mercy. Amen.

Another Lesson This Week:

St. Mark 16:14-20

Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; He rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed His word by the signs that accompanied it.

St. John 16:23-30

[Jesus said,] In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to
you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.”

We’re still in the Sixteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel (third straight week on this conversation between Jesus and His disciples).

First, we looked at the part in which He talked about the “little while” that they would weep, and lament, and sorrow in His absence (all other believers too, until He returns in glory). He was telling them that, like a mother’s rejoicing at the birth of her child following the pain, believers will rejoice endlessly when that day has come. Then, last week, we looked at His promise of sending the Spirit of truth, the one Who clarifies for them these three things: (1) sin’s significance, (2) where sinners truly find their righteousness (in Christ), and (3) the “innocent” verdict believers in Christ receive in the judgment.

In today’s section of that chapter, Jesus talks about one of the specific things His followers will be doing in this world while they await His return; He talks about prayer. They will pray for their comfort. They will pray as an expression of faith. They will pray in His Name.

For Their Comfort

You might notice the word Rogate on the cover of the bulletin. It means, pray! We might not think of it this way so much, but one of the fathers of the synod ours comes from—the Norwegian synod—talked in a sermon about us being commanded in the Second Commandment to pray. We usually think we break that commandment—You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain—by doing something we’re not supposed to do; using God’s name in a way that dishonors Him. From U.V. Koren’s perspective, though, we break it also by not doing a certain thing we’re supposed to be doing with God’s name, that is: praying.

Jesus certainly is presenting prayer in this text as something believers do. It’s a given to Him that they’ll have things to say to the heavenly Father in prayer.

In Jesus’ conversation with His disciples in our text, He makes clear to them that, He won’t be in their presence anymore in the same way. They won’t be able to come to Him with their needs and concerns like they did in the boat when the waves were tossing them about and they thought they were going to perish, or like in the wilderness, when a hungry crowd was looking to them to provide food. Instead, they will go to the Father in prayer. They will flee for refuge to His infinite mercy, seeking and imploring His grace, as we say in one version of the Confession of Sins. They will be doing it by praying. Though not with Jesus like they’ve known, they will still have audience with God in this way. They can take comfort in having been invited by Him to address to Him their concerns.

That same U.V. Koren we mentioned earlier—in that same sermon, talks about believers having a longing to pray to God. “You never ask people for things you don’t want to have”—he says. We pray because we have needs.

You certainly recognize all sorts of needs that you have. If you’re a parent, you need wisdom in dealing with your children. You need understanding. You need patience. You need forgiveness for the times you think, and say, and do the wrong things. You need peace of mind because so many things worry you about their lives. You want them to be protected from all kinds of harm and danger. You want them to prosper mentally, physically, emotionally. You want them to be people of faith, who fear the true God. And you feel in so many moments in this, helpless, clumsy, incompetent. Jesus tells His disciples in our text (and He tells you) that the Father waits to hear your concerns—this One for Whom nothing is too large, nothing impossible.

As An Expression of Faith

“You never ask people for things you don’t want to have.”—Koren follows it with this: “You don’t ask people from whom you don’t expect anything.” Prayer is an expression of our faith. We pray because we believe, not only that we have needs that even with our best efforts still go unmet, but also that in God our needs are met. There wouldn’t be any point in praying otherwise. We pray because we believe Jesus when He says the Father hears our prayers. We believe Him when He says that we will receive from Him to our joy.

And yet, often our praying amounts more to something we are getting around to doing rather than something we have very faithfully done. We have been “pray-ers” in theory, but not so very often in practice. And it’s important for us to consider what that says about us as believers. Is God the One Who helps us in our need; or must our help come from elsewhere (maybe from ourselves)? The world says you must believe in yourself, you must dig down deep and come up with whatever it is that can solve your problems. God isn’t in the equation for the world.

It isn’t the same for us, is it? That’s not what we believe. That’s certainly not what Jesus is saying in our text. We ask of the Father in our need. If prayer is an expression of faith, then it has to be said—doesn’t it?—that to not pray is to act like an unbeliever. It’s to have had the One Who can truly help inviting us to come to Him for that help, and to have said, “I don’t need it; I don’t want it.”

In His Name

You might have noticed that in our text, Jesus says, in My name a number of times. People wonder sometimes, Why do we do that; why do we say, “In Jesus’ name” at the end of our prayers? It comes from this text.

The answer has to do with what Jesus is preparing in our text to do for His disciples (and for us). In a sense, He has already been doing it: He has been living perfectly in their place in this world—sinless. His work will be complete a short time after our text, when He is betrayed into the hands of sinners, unjustly convicted and sentenced to death, crucified, and entombed. Then, He will have positioned Himself (according to eternal plan) to represent us before the Father. He has made us able to invoke His name before the Father, Who then sees us as never having sinned—Him having been made guilty and punished for all of ours.

We don’t belong before the Father otherwise. Other than in Jesus’ name we have no business there. I wouldn’t want to find out what happens were I to stand before the perfect God in my own name. That name is corrupted. It is soiled. It is wholly unfit to stand before Him. There would be no mercy applied to my name, only just punishment for sins.

But I go before Him in Jesus’ Name. We talked about sins we have as parents (children have a whole list of their own). We talked about the sin that we have of neglecting prayer—ignoring so much of the time God’s invitation to address Him as the One who hears and Who helps. Jesus had no such sins, see. He was a perfect child of His parents, and of His heavenly Father—continually going before Him in prayer in every sort of circumstance. We not only see glimpses of it in Scripture, but knowing Him, we know that how ever many times He did it, it was the perfect amount. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.

So, when we look back upon the pitifulness of our prayer lives, and upon all of the other ways in which we have fallen short before God, and have earned His wrath and punishment, we don’t despair because our names are attached through Baptism, through faith to a Name that stands before God righteous and having salvation. It’s the Name that has made us righteous through an exchange; He took our sins upon Himself so that we could have His righteousness. We ask the Father in His name, and we receive. We receive to the extent that our joy is full. We anticipate the inheritance of God’s kingdom. The Father loves us for Christ’s sake. He loves you. He forgives you your sins. He forgives you in Jesus’ Name. God be praised. Amen.

Other Lessons from this week:

Jeremiah 29:11-14

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

James 1:22-27

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

St. John 16:5-15

[Jesus said,] “Now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Our text is all about the importance of knowing the difference between what’s really true and what isn’t. That’s a timely topic, isn’t it?

Jesus will be gone from His disciples soon—in terms of their ability to interact this way with Him. But it’s a good thing, He says here. It’s good because in His place, another will come to them (they won’t be able to interact with Him like this either, but…it’s still a good thing). It’s good because the Helper, or the one Jesus goes on to call the Spirit of truth, Who’s coming, has a specific duty toward them that is to their advantage. The timing works such that He gets sent by Jesus once Jesus has accomplished His work (the dying for people’s sins, the rising from death, the ascending into heaven and so forth).

We confess in the meaning to the Third Article of the Creed, why this person is so important to them.

“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

The gifts of the Father that we talk about this morning (you might have seen those words on the cover of the bulletin) are the Spirit of truth (Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, the third person of the Triune God), and the Word of God that He uses to bring us to faith, and to keep that faith alive unto eternal life (also the Sacraments that are powered by that Spirit and Word).

Sin, righteousness, and judgment are the things Jesus says will be the Spirit’s points of focus as He guides people into all the truth—Sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Sin

We don’t like very much to hear about sin. When we confess in the Third Article’s Meaning, that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe, we’re referring to our fallen nature. We’re referring to our having inherited sinfulness from our first parents.

• We don’t want to be told what to do and not do.

• We don’t want to be made to feel guilty for having done anything wrong.

• We don’t want there to be a certain way that we have to be according to God.

• We don’t want to be held accountable for keeping God’s laws as presented in the Bible.

• Certainly, when we see the world getting more and more okay with things that go against God’s laws (things we might secretly like), then we don’t want to be pulled back and told, yes, but God’s laws still apply like they always did.

What a drag!—our sinful nature thinks. We don’t like very much to hear about sin.

The Spirit of truth is the one God has sent to stand on that Word, and say to the world what Jesus said, …until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:18). When people are in a burning building, it doesn’t matter if the people inside say, Yeah, but I don’t want the building to be burning; it doesn’t matter if they say, Yeah, but I don’t believe the building is burning. They need to get out if they want to survive. The Spirit of truth, on the one hand, convicts us of sin. He confronts us with God’s Law that exposes us, exposes our guilt. He convinces us that our guilt needs to have a solution; we can’t just decide we don’t mind having guilt. That won’t end well for us; hell is the end for that.

If the Spirit’s work bears the desired fruit in us, we have come to recognize our guilt, and to want nothing more than to have a solution that will remove it from us, remove the just punishment for that guilt. The Spirit of truth convicts us in regard to sin.

Righteousness

Righteousness is the next point of focus for the Spirit of truth. How do sinners become righteous, become what they need to be in order to escape guilt’s penalty?  The first thing the Spirit has to address is something that comes along with our sinful nature; that is, the thought that we can save ourselves.

Fewer and fewer today believe there even is a God to whom they are accountable. They see themselves as perfectly good people, and don’t give a thought to any sort of punishment waiting in their future. The Spirit is busy convicting them of sin, like we were talking about earlier. He works to rid them of this delusion before it’s too late.

For you, who believe there’s a God to whom you’re accountable, the Spirit’s work is aimed more at your tendency to compare yourself to other people, and think God certainly isn’t going to bother me about anything when others around are so much worse. The Spirit’s convicting of you is teaching you how you’re wrong about righteousness when your fallen nature is thinking in this way, and about what it really means to be that—to be righteous. He might point you to the words of the Psalmist: Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you (143:2). Or Isaiah: We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment (64:6). Jesus addressed this when someone asked what good he must do to have eternal life. He said, There is only one who is good (Matthew 19:17). Of course, that one is God Himself. Only a person who has God’s righteousness as his own escapes the just punishment for sins, attains eternal life.

God’s righteousness is available for you to have as your own through faith in the Christ. Believing that God has made you righteous in Him gives you ownership of that righteousness. Believing that His sacrifice on the cross was for you—so that you can be righteous before God makes the righteousness your own. Jesus doesn’t have any false notion of saving Himself like you have; He doesn’t need any saving. He has taken the guilt of your sin of self-righteousness on Himself, being punished for it so that you are given His true righteousness in exchange. That means you’re forgiven of that and every other sin. You are made fit for God’s eternal kingdom because of what Christ has done for you. The Spirit of truth convicts us in regard to righteousness.

Judgment

The Spirit of truth has one more topic to address: judgment. That can be a word that makes us uneasy. We envision charges being read, a guilty suspect waiting for the judge’s verdict, the judge preparing to hand the verdict down. Do you ever worry about this? Do you think about the sins of your youth (or of more recent days)? There are things I would imagine that all of us think about (unless I’m different from all of you, because I certainly have things).

And the devil likes that we have those things. He likes that we revisit them in our minds, regretting them anew from time to time. His hope is that you think, God is certainly very good; but He can’t be so good that He would let that slide. And the devil wants you to think, these are good Christian people who are gathered here this morning. I don’t belong here. I don’t measure up to this.

The Spirit’s work is in a very tender area now. He puts Christ before your eyes. Look what He has done for you! He stood waiting for the judge’s verdict (this innocent One did!). What was given as the list of sins for which He must die are those sins of yours—the ones you revisit, the ones you regret anew over and over again. They’re already taken care of. He wanted to do it. He died for them. He rose again to life, defeating death and sin. You won’t have them read as your sins again in the Judgment; they’ve already been read and done away with. Read as your verdict will be the word innocent. You are that through faith in Christ. Let that be the end of your uneasiness. God’s mercy is yours in Christ. You know the difference between what’s really true and what isn’t; the Spirit of truth has told you. You are a sinner. Christ is your righteousness. You are thereby innocent in the judgment. God be praised. Amen.

Isaiah 12:1-6

You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O LORD, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

James 1:16-21

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every
person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

St. John 16:16-23

[Jesus said], “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”

You will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice—Jesus says to His disciples in our text. He has just washed their feet on Maundy Thursday. He hasn’t yet been arrested. Soon, He will be gone from them (at least so as they have known). 

And that’s just the latest of the troubling news He has given them. Before this, He’s been saying that the world will hate them on His account (John 15:18). They’ll put them out of the synagogues. They’ll even think killing them is offering a service to God (16:1-2). 

Maybe this portrayal of the world as hostile to Jesus’ followers is surprising to you. You might think, Oh, that’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? Maybe you don’t feel like you’ve experienced that sort of hostility as a result of being Jesus’ follower. St. Peter might have seen Jesus as being a little dramatic in this way. In an account from Matthew’s Gospel Jesus starts telling Peter and the others of all that’ll be happening to Him shortly in Jerusalem—the suffering, and the killing, and the rising from death. And Peter takes Him aside and says, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (16:22). Could Jesus really cause that level of offense? Could He really get people riled up that badly?

It does seem strange. The message that we believe doesn’t seem like it should be so offensive. 

• God created people.

• They sinned and separated themselves from Him to their harm.

• He loved them so much that He laid down His life in order that they might be with Him eternally.

• He isn’t going to require that they pay the cost for sinning; He has paid it with His own blood instead.

Why should anyone be so offended at that?

And you might be thinking, all this talk about weeping, and lamenting, and being sorrowful; are things really all that bad? Jesus had responded to Peter’s rebuke of Him with a rebuke of His own: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23).  

In a way, Jesus was saying to him, you’re trying to make this less serious than it is. Things really are all that bad. In fact, they’re so bad, that solving them will take God dying for you.

That idea of trying to make things less serious than they really are; that’s a temptation that’s common to all of us. On this Mother’s Day, we recall our tendency to spin our disobedience into something that, by the time we’re done with it, sounds like it might be something resembling a certain form of obedience. I might not have done exactly as you asked, Mom; but what I did actually brought about the result I think you were looking for anyway (which is my happiness). So, no harm actually done…right? You’re welcome!

Our sinful nature is forever engaged in this sort of negotiation with God. He says in the conscience and in His Word that our absolute corruption required payment in the form of His innocent Son’s death—things can’t be any worse; our sinful nature says, well, it seems that way on the surface, maybe; but actually, when you really think about it, I’m able to be a pretty good person. It really isn’t as bad as all that. And as long as the sinful nature is winning that battle, we are able to look at the big picture of this world without all of the weeping, and lamenting, and being sorrowful. And that can be really appealing to us. We can just kind of ignore the price of our sins and the battle that continues between us and the devil for the duration of this fallen world.

But just as empty and worthless is our spin to our mothers about our disobedience actually being the cause of goodness, so is our imagination of a goodness in us that makes Christ’s sacrifice unnecessary (so is our imagination of us in a world free of the corruption that caused His death, free of the corruption that brings the world’s hatred upon faithful followers of that Savior). If the world isn’t hating us, then Jesus didn’t know what He was talking about in our text with all of the weeping, and lamenting, and being sorrowful. As those who know Christ, who know our sins that brought about His sacrifice on the cross (our school kids talk about this every day as they recite blessed are the poor in spirit in their chapel liturgy); as those who know the ongoing power of our sin that threatens to separate us from Him forever, we live in this world as ones who most ardently anticipate the next world. In our best moments (the Spirit-led ones) we aren’t thinking up ways to spin our unrighteousness into actually being some sort of righteousness; rather, in our despair, we're clinging to Christ’s righteousness that brings God’s forgiveness, and that promises to us a resurrection to glory with Him eternally.

And Jesus describes this anticipation in a way that couldn’t be more apropos for Mother’s Day. He compares the believer’s anticipation of His kingdom to a mother giving birth to her beloved child. The corruption that sin has brought on this world is present in the proceedings. It’s there in the pain of labor. She has sorrow because her hour has come—Jesus says. God had foretold this pain that comes as the result of sin. To Eve he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). 

But the pain isn’t to be forever. When she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world—Jesus says in our text. And He compares that to what His disciples will experience, and really what all believers will experience in this world. You haven’t really helped yourself in those moments in which you imagined that things are less serious than they really are, in those moments in which you imagined that sin hasn’t really brought weeping, and lamenting, and sorrowing, that somehow you can spin your unrighteousness into righteousness. All of that sort of thinking is empty and worthless. It comes from the nature that is utterly corrupted. 

The believer’s sorrow is turned into true joy in the One Who says in the text, I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. This is the one Who never needs unrighteousness to be massaged into righteousness, to be spun into righteousness. He already has it. So when He is considered by God to be your righteousness, nothing more is needed. It could never be said of you, that you were wholly obedient to your mother; but the Bible does say it of Him (Luke 2:51). His blood has bought your forgiveness. You are forgiven in Him.

A little while we wait in this world. We have joys here; there’s no question about it. Many of us are blessed to recall joy that God has brought to us through the loving service of our mothers. He has been kind to us through their kindness. He has provided for our needs through their provision that was too often unthanked. Our mothers represent to us the love and caring that Jesus is expressing to His disciples in our text. They remind us of His great love for us. They remind us of what is expressed in our Old Testament lesson: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

We wait quietly a little while for the salvation of the Lord. As those forgiven in Christ’s blood, we anticipate the end of our weeping, and lamenting, and sorrowing that give way to eternal rejoicing at His side. Amen.

Lamentations 3:18-26

My endurance has perished;  so has my hope from the LORD.” Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the Salvation of the LORD.

1 Peter 2:11-20 

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 

Palm Sunday/Matthew 21:1-9 

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

“Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Presumably, many of the Good Friday “Crucify Him!—shouters” are also these Palm Sunday “Hosanna to the Son of David!—shouters”. It seems astonishing, doesn’t it?—that in five days they will go from, We love this guy!—to, We gotta to kill this guy!—even shouting out things like, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25)! How could it happen?

We’re going to look at 

1. What they thought they knew about Jesus, and then:

2. What they came later to think they knew about Jesus, and then, finally:

3. What all people really need to know about Jesus.

What they thought they knew about Jesus

Hosanna to the Son of David!—is a very specific greeting. When Mary learned she would be the Savior’s mother, the angel said to her, And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32b-33). Saying his father David meant He was from David’s ancestral line. It was a reference to prophecies like from Jeremiah (23:5-6):

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ (Jeremiah 23:5-6). 

Jeremiah’s words, at least in one sense, were a prophecy of the Messiah, of God’s anointed Savior that He was sending for sinners. What the people thought they knew about Jesus, was that He was this one Whom Old Testament prophets had talked about; He was this Righteous Branch, this king, this Savior. 

They thought they knew this about Him because of what He was doing. The prophet Isaiah had said that when this anointed individual came, he would bring good news—joyful news of freedom from captivity for those who were brokenhearted (who knew they were on the outs with God because of their sins, is what he meant). The Psalmist had talked about Him providing justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, opening the eyes of the blind (146). They had seen Jesus doing these things, including unimaginable miraculous signs (He’d brought Lazarus back from the dead recently—John 11:42-44). Certainly this was the one they’d been waiting for, they thought. In fact, St. John records a couple of instances of people saying that sort of thing: “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world” (6:14)!—and, “This really is the prophet” (7:40)!

On Palm Sunday, they were sort of following the script of our Old Testament lesson. As this king was coming, righteous, having salvation, they were rejoicing greatly, they were shouting aloud in praise of Him. 

And as long as He would fulfill their expectations…they would be set to go on praising Him. Their praise was based on what they thought they knew about Jesus.

What they came later to think they knew about Jesus

For many of the people, evidently, what they’d imagined Jesus to be, and what He turned out to be were two different things. For one thing, they’d imagined a king who would have a kingdom like David’s kingdom. Like Jeremiah’s prophecy had said, he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. 

Those words have the sound of the kind of kingdom that would be in this world (though, Jesus would say to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world”—John 18:36). If words like Jeremiah’s had become detached in their minds from God’s promise to Adam and Eve, and to Abraham, and so on, of Him sending a savior from sin, then it’s imaginable that people had attached a worldly sort of interpretation to the Messiah’s kingdom, come to think of Him as having a kingdom of this world. 

There’s a hint of this sort of expectation in the account of the feeding of the 5,000, that we looked at a few weeks ago—in the crowd that saw the miracle, and then determined to take Jesus, and make Him king by force (John 6:15). Also, it was implied in some of the things the disciples said, like at the ascension: 

…they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” His disciple Thomas had said to Him another time, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” At least to some extent, even the disciples evidently imagined a king who would have a kingdom like David’s kingdom, here on earth.

Also, quite frankly, they’d imagined a winner. On this day in Jerusalem, riding in kingly fashion (as King Solomon had once done—on a donkey, no less—1 Kings 1:38), put together with everything else, they could see it; Jesus had that appearance. They couldn’t wait to see what might come next. Would there be a battle of some sort? Who knew? They certainly expected Jesus would overcome, though, whatever was to happen (of course, He would overcome; but it wouldn’t really look that way for some time, with the disciples in despair over their master’s death). 

We’d asked how it could happen that “Hosanna!—shouters” could so quickly turn to “Crucify Him!—shouters”. There’s an incident in John’s Gospel: Jesus had been saying some things that were difficult for the people to understand. At a certain point, it says, After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him [speaking of a larger group of followers, not the twelve] (6:66). They’d become disillusioned. Jesus wasn’t who they’d thought Him to be, they’d determined.

Well, a number of turbulent things happened on Holy Week. The next thing Matthew records after this Palm Sunday text is Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (overturning the money-changer’s tables and so forth). It was for good reason, as He explained, but we can imagine it left an impression with people. Shortly after, Matthew mentions again, Jesus’ authority being challenged by the chief priests and elders of the people—the peoples’ religious leaders (the people were seeing that, too). Jesus’ messages had gotten more provocative, with Him saying things like, Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits (Matthew 21:43). He preached stunning law—not only to scribes and Pharisees, but to Jerusalem—to the ones of that generation, telling parables of people being excluded from the kingdom. In the days immediately following this Palm Sunday entrance, the “Hosanna—shouters” were processing a lot of information, taking in a lot of things—things that informed what they later came to think they knew about Jesus, including, for many, the religious leaders’ assertion that He was a fraud.

So, the people had thought Jesus to be the prophet who was to come into the world, but perhaps (for many) more of an earthly leader than a savior from sin. A short time later, many would evidently become convinced to the contrary. Many would become offended by Him, as He’d cautioned John’s disciples not to do (Matthew 11:6).

What all people really need to know about Jesus

Our hymn really does a pretty good job of setting out the important issues. The statement, 

“O Savior meek, pursue Thy road” 

—from the first verse reminds us of St. Luke’s statement about Jesus: When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem (9:51). Luke meant, He started to bring to completion what His life and ministry had been entirely about—dying on a cross outside of Jerusalem for the world’s sins. We’re reminded also of Jesus’ statement: No one takes [My life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:18). This goes well with the hymn writer’s poetry in verse 3 as well: 

“The angel armies of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice.”

When we’re talking about what people really need to know about Jesus, the word sacrifice is a must-mention. And along with it, the fact of it being a willing sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice planned in eternity, promised in the Garden of Eden to the first sinners, foreshadowed in Old Testament worship. The innocent blood of this “Lamb of God” stands in the place of every sinner. 

It stands in your’s and my place too. We might say that the Palm Sunday shouters ultimately wanted Jesus to be something other than He was. They wanted more than the Savior meek pursuing His road, than the approaching sacrifice. They wanted a more satisfying existence in this world. They weren’t interested in Jesus if He wasn’t going to be that for them. It was simple worldliness, wasn’t it? It was clinging to this life and this world. Aren’t you guilty of that too? Isn’t that the greatest danger that stands between you and heaven? 

Jesus sure thought so. He talked about it during Holy Week in some of His most well-known parables. He told the Parable of the Wedding Feast in which invited guests chose other interests over the master’s heavenly invitation. He told the parable of the Ten Virgins in which five are focused on being included in the kingdom, and the others haven’t been interested enough to be prepared. Jesus talked about it because every sinner clings to this world and this life, demonstrating even a tendency to choose it over the next life. The devil stands ready with accusations of this for every sinner.

But the One Who rides in our text has silenced those accusations. The devil has no opportunity to make them because One has prioritized God’s kingdom above all else without fail on your behalf. It’s like your clinging to this life and this world over God’s eternal kingdom never happened because the road the meek Savior in our text pursued led to the cross and grave. It led there so that He might (as the hymn writer says):

“Bow [His] head to mortal pain.”

What all people really need to know about Jesus, is that God has forgiven their sins in Him. He has forgiven your sins in Him. You sing Hosanna this morning to the Savior who pursued the cross and grave for you so that in Him you now have eternal life. God be praised. Amen.