Matthew 8:5-13

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.

There’s a bumper sticker that addresses a certain frustration drivers have. The person following (usually seeing it at a stop light or something) reads: “Are you following Jesus this closely?” I thought of that because the theme on the bulletin cover for this day is: Following Jesus. It doesn’t have anything to do with tailgating, though. On the contrary, following Jesus means humbling oneself before Him, and trusting His Words, according to our text.

Again: Following Jesus means humbling oneself before Him, and trusting His Words.

Jesus’ statement: with no one in Israel have I found such faith is important to the point of it all. Among the Israelites, He hasn’t been seeing something He’s been wishing He would see; He hasn’t seen, despite them seeing all of His Messianic signs and wonders (seeing what the prophets said the Messiah would do); despite them seeing all of that, He hasn’t seen among them a willingness to recognize Him as the Savior God has sent, and to trust in His Words, to closely follow Him.

Again: He hasn’t seen it like He’s wanted to from God’s people—the Israelites. From the ones from whom you’d expect He’d see it, He hasn’t been seeing it. “Church people” like them (and like you)—regularly exposed to His Word, are the ones from whom He hasn’t been seeing this willingness to recognize Him as the Savior God has sent, and to trust in His Words.

He has, however, seen it on this day, from a centurion—a Roman soldier, a non-Jew—a non-member of those who were called God’s people. He’s seen it from him. He has seen it to such an extent, that He has said the thing we mentioned earlier: with no one in Israel have I found such faith. He hasn’t seen faith this strong from the Israelites; He has seen it from this Roman centurion.

And it’s this unusual thing the centurion says that makes Jesus react so strongly, makes Him say that thing about his profound faith.

Remember, that this man has come to Jesus with the great concern that his servant is paralyzed, and suffering terribly. Jesus is compassionate. Part of His purpose in coming has been to demonstrate to people that God’s kingdom is coming, and that in that kingdom there will be an end to suffering. One of the ways He demonstrates it is to end for some people, some of the suffering here. So, He has said that He will come down to the man’s house for that purpose, to end someone’s suffering.

We’ve seen this before, in other accounts. Jesus shows up on the scene and puts His hand on a person (or something like that), and maybe says something, and the person is restored in whatever way was necessary. He’s God in human flesh. There isn’t anything He can’t do; so, it gets done. He goes there, and it gets done.

The wrinkle in this particular case: the man doesn’t want Him to come.

Huh. But he has just come to Jesus and indicated that he wants His help. Jesus has offered to help. But the thing is, the man’s reasoning for not wanting Jesus to come down to his house is impressive. In fact, it’s so impressive, that Jesus considers it an indication of faith He hasn’t seen even among those who are supposed to be God’s own people. As it so happens, the man doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of having Jesus come under his roof because he knows Jesus is God, and he is a sinner.

But this is the one to whom I will look [says God through the prophet Isaiah]: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word (Isaiah 66:2). Don’t those words from God indicate that this centurion is just the sort of person God recognizes as one of His own?

His humility in itself is indicative of great faith, isn’t it? It’s basically St. Peter (in our Gospel lesson), after seeing the great catch of fish miracle, saying to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Luke 5:8).” This centurion’s humility before God is like that.

But the thing that pleases Jesus so much in this particular case, is how the man expresses that he trusts implicitly Him. He trusts that Jesus can get the job done in another way. He’s shy about having God come under his lowly roof; but what he knows to be the case is that all Jesus has to do is say the word. You know!! (He kinda says): it’s just like how I—a centurion—am in charge of people; and I just say the word and things get done. I don’t have to go to there myself; just say it. That’s the kind of authority a centurion has in the Roman Empire. And, important in this moment, important to what the man believes: that’s the kind of authority Jesus’ Word has when it comes to somebody getting healed. He significantly trusts Jesus’ Words. Remember, we said humbling oneself before Jesus and trusting His Words is following Jesus. That’s what He’s seeing in the centurion that He hasn’t seen to that same extent in Israel.

And Jesus is gratified in seeing it. He marvels at it, our text says. He says to His followers, that thing we’ve been talking about—that He hasn’t seen such faith with anyone in Israel. In fact, says Jesus, this foreigner trusting Him like this is an example of the fact that many more like him will come from outside of Israel, and will be joined with those who are inheriting God’s kingdom. Many more will come who will humble themselves before God, and trust in Him, so that He recognizes them as His own. On the other hand, the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness (excluded from the kingdom, of course that means). The Israelites excluded, He’s warning—the “church people” if you will.

That hits close to home with you, because you are “church people”. For the purposes of this conversation this morning, you see yourselves as related to the Israelites. You have the same advantage they had, of knowing the true God—knowing His Word that draws you to Him for salvation.

We had that bumper sticker question, “Are you following Jesus this closely?” Jesus has compared the Israelites (the church people) of His time—their following of Him—to something; He has compared it to this centurion’s following of Him. In a sense He has asked His Israelite audience, “Are you following Jesus this closely?” Are you following Him so closely, that you have a faith that humbles itself before Him—recognizing your sins, so closely, that you trust implicitly that His words are true, that they’re powerful, that they bring about for you what they promise?

Or, has your following of Him been a distant sort of following? The owner of that bumper sticker was encouraging a distant sort of following. That’s desirable for safe driving. But when it comes to our following of Jesus distance isn’t desirable.

It’s not what anyone sets out to have be the case. When people are going through the church membership instruction class, they don’t aspire to one day be distant followers of Jesus. They’re joining the church because they’re convinced that following Jesus closely is critical to their lives. They want their faith to resemble the centurion’s faith, that humbles itself before God, and trusts implicitly in His Words. They want to be close to God, joyfully anticipating His kingdom. That’s the sort of following that people set out to do, either having just been Baptized and experiencing the Spirit’s leading, or having been brought to it later, through instruction in God’s Word. In either case, their aspiration is to be closely following Jesus.

But distance in our following of Him sort of happens without our noticing. It’s something we look back and realize has been the case, when our attention is drawn to it (like in this message this morning). And we’re not happy to be realizing it. We realize the devil has been working in our lives, right. Through his dark encouragement we have softened our resolve to put away sin in our lives and to humble ourselves before God. We have become less interested in God’s Word, and less trusting of it as critical to our lives.

Evidently, Jesus was seeing more of that lukewarm-ness, that sort of distance in the faith of the Israelite crowd. He wanted to see in them what He was seeing in the centurion. He wanted to see them hungering and thirsting after righteousness as He said in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:6). He wanted a close relationship with God to be more important to them than other things in their lives.

He has wanted the same from you; and when you have examined yourself, no doubt, you have noticed that you have at times backed off from Him. You have ignored the opportunities He has given you to grow in faith, and to be closer to Him. You have put yourself at a distance from Him, so that He might say of you like of the Israelites of His time, that He hasn’t seen in you the humility before Him and the implicit trust in His Words that He has desired. That sort of lukewarmness of faith, that distant following of Him now threatens to become a permanent separation from Him. Jesus speaks this warning to the church people of His time so that they’ll be jarred out of their apathy.

There isn’t any question about Who He is; He’s the Savior God has sent. Look what you’re seeing in our text: His Word powerfully restores bodies that are damaged with paralysis. Nobody else’s word does that. And that merciful work of His in this world is just a demonstration of what’s to come in His kingdom. Even more important is the other damage He repairs. He goes to the cross to put people’s spiritual carelessness (yours too, and mine) and all other sins on His own back to bear them. He makes you able to be close to Him—to God, where before it was impossible. Since He’s punished there for your sins, you’re forgiven of them. You need not dwell on this sin of apathy or any other sin any longer, then. It is paid for; it is removed entirely forever. In His sacrificial death on the cross, Jesus’ perfection in all things has come to stand before God as your own perfection. It’s been placed upon you to cover your sin.

When you come to the altar this morning to receive Him in His grace and mercy through the Sacrament, think of Him drawing you close to Him. He puts forgiveness in your mouth through the Supper. He assures you that your trust in Him is warranted. His Words this is My body, this is My blood given for you—bring about for you what they promise: namely, forgiveness and eternal life. God has brought you close to Himself. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

Exordium

The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.

—Those words of Christ from our Gospel lesson are what our observance of this day is all about, this Day of Pentecost.

Believers had gathered in Jerusalem (as they always had for this particular Feast that perhaps commemorated the giving of the Law through Moses on Mt. Sinai). But among them were also these who’d become Jesus’ followers. It had been ten days since He’d ascended into heaven (telling them to remain there in Jerusalem, to wait for the promise of the Father, to wait to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, to be clothed with power from on high [Luke 24:49]). Huh, they were probably thinking to themselves as they scratched their heads (What else would one think at having been told something like that)?

But then, on that day, imagine their joy! Jesus’ words had been fulfilled in such a remarkable way! A sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind, tongues as of fire that glowed above each of them, even visibly resting on them, the sudden uttering by them, of languages they hadn’t known before (even more, the Spirit was speaking the wonderful works of God through them!). The Holy Spirit had come to them as Jesus had promised, to teach them, to draw them closer to God—knowing Jesus their Savior even better, giving them power to proclaim Him even.

You are Jesus’ followers who are gathered on another Pentecost thousands of years later. You aren’t any different from those first ones. You cling to God’s Word because you know the burden of your sins. You hang on His Words of mercy. You wait on the same work of the same Spirit. For many of you, He came to you first at your Baptism as an infant, communicating with you in whatever way was necessary the wonderful works of God—that He has removed your sins for Christ’s sake.

Perk your ears up to hear St. Peter’s message in our text this morning. He speaks it to you, too. He accuses you of crucifying the Lord, Christ, because it was your sins, too, that necessitated such horror. What will you do with such an accusation? That’s the question the accused ask in the text, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Will St. Peter answer with a long list of works they must accomplish in order to get back into God’s good graces? How will He answer this most desperate of questions? For now, we’ll just say that you aren’t the answer; Jesus is. We sing our festival hymn, #399 – O Light of God’s Most Wondrous Love

Sermon

Acts 2:36–42

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Our text follows the events of our Epistle lesson—the Pentecost things. After Jesus’ Ascension, the Spirit had come upon His apostles as He’d promised, to remind them of His Words, and to guide them into all truth (John 16:13). He’d brought about wonders of sight and sound in the seeing and hearing of all gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. The writer (Luke) says that all were amazed and perplexed. And he says that some were mocking [this miracle—the apostles proclaiming Christ in the various languages of the gathered peoples], saying, “They are filled with new wine.” They’re drunk, they meant, of course. Peter had stood up and begun to address that assumption. Drunkenness didn’t explain it, he’d said; rather, prophecy. The Old Testament prophet Joel had foretold this outpouring of the Spirit, and subsequent prophesying of many of God’s people—and conversion unto eternal life of many of the hearers.

The confirmands have learned that the Law is one of the Bible’s two main teachings. It says what God requires of us (the following of the Commandments themselves, and the extent to which we’re to follow them: perfectly). And, of course, the fuller conversation revolves around where that realization leaves us. Guilty is the answer; it leaves us guilty. It leaves us without any way of reaching God’s kingdom that we could accomplish on our own. We look into the mirror of the Law and see in ourselves only guilt and shame (and therefore, as being in a great crisis!).

Imagine what it would have been like to hear Peter’s preaching of the Law in his message that day: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

And we might think, well, wait a minute! That’s gonna make ‘em feel bad! Yes, and there’s an object to it. It’s what Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes when He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:3,4). The poor in spirit, the mourners—they’re the ones who’ve had this sort of finger pointed at them, and have recognized their sin, and have come to realize there’s no way out of the trouble without God’s help.

Peter’s listeners had been deceived (even by their own spiritual leaders). They’d been caught up in a wickedness that now made them ashamed. Now, they’d seen the power of God displayed in the Holy Spirit’s coming. It horrified them to hear Peter say what they’d done. That’s why in the beginning of our text, after Peter has added: God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified, they respond with shame and regret. St. Luke says, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

You shouldn’t think there isn’t the same finger pointed at you. You share the same nature as Peter’s audience. You’ve been deceived by the devil, and the world, and your flesh into grievous sin, too. You aren’t any less guilty before God. You’re to be included in the Bible’s statement: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)—me too.

Haven’t you had moments like those people in our text, when the Law’s spotlight has been shined on you, and you realize you’ve been trapped into speaking or thinking something evil toward someone else (or doing something). It felt like the right thing at the time because your wicked nature was celebrating it and even making plans to continue it in the future, expanding on it, even! But now you realized that you had (once again) been led down a path that wasn’t glorifying God, but rather the devil. And having had those times you can relate to how the people in our text were feeling. You can relate to the regret, and to the shame. You can relate to the desperate question: “Brothers, what shall we do?”

The other of the Bible’s main teachings that the confirmands have come to understand is the Gospel. When you recognize that you have fallen short of God’s glory, and are guilty, and are deserving of everlasting punishment, the last thing you would want is for someone to answer your question, “What shall we do” with a list of possibilities for you to try in hopes that God might be suitably impressed with your effort, and consider you to have made up for your wrongs. What a discouraging thing that would be! Nothing has changed since Martin Luther tried to find comfort in that 500 years ago, and only kept imagining hell’s flames awaiting him (He was right to be thinking that; the wages of our sins is death!). You come to the same conclusions he did: your nature has been sinful since your conception! You don’t gain ground in making up for what you’ve done and been; you only add to it. You need a different answer than DIY salvation. You can’t do it yourself. If it’s up to you your sins will continue to be attached to you in the Judgment; you’ll be held entirely accountable for them without any escape. What a disaster if that were the answer to “What shall we do?”.

It isn’t Peter’s answer to that question in our text. Instead, it’s: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The answer isn’t what you do for yourself; it’s what’s done for you. Being baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ is being moved from the category of those who will be held accountable for their own sins, to the category of those on whose behalf Christ is held accountable. That’s what you have faith in if you have faith in Christ. You have faith in His having done for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. You have faith in being able to stand before God in the judgment and say, “It’s His record that’s going to be judged as my record. It’s His having looked in the Law’s mirror and seen perfection that counts for me. It’s His punishment that counts as the payment for my sins.

Dear confirmands, you were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. In that Baptism you received the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who spoke God’s invitation into your hearts.

I want you to think especially this morning about the last little portion of our text: And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. That’s a description of the believers’ regular existence in the early church after Pentecost. They were weekly gathered to hear God’s Word (the Apostles’ teaching), to receive the Supper, to pray. Another way this might have been written would have been to say that the Lord, Who bought them for Himself through the redeeming blood of Christ continued to send them the Spirit in His Means of Grace to build them up, to encourage them, to unite them with each other, to draw them to Himself.

The Spirit will continue to work in your hearts every week, in a place like this, through these same means of grace. He will hear your confession, and will pronounce to you through the servant He has provided, the absolution—the pronouncement that Christ’s blood and merit have covered your sins, you are fully and freely forgiven. Your own question of “What shall we do?” is to be answered in the same way as for the people in our text: return to your Baptism in repentance and in faith, where God’s grace is to be found in the blood of Christ. It isn’t what you do for yourself; it’s what’s been done for you. God be praised! Amen.

Other Lessons:

Joel 2:28–32

“I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

Acts 2:1–13

The lesson will be read in Portuguese  by Erik Lee

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.”

St. John 14:23–31

Jesus answered and said to 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. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word you hear is not Mine but  the Father’s who sent Me.

“These things I have spoken while being present with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid.

“You heard Me say to you: ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said ‘I am going to the Father,’ for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.”

Video Block

Double-click here to add a video by URL or embed code. Learn more

St. John 7:33-39

Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?” On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

This morning we celebrate the great blessing of our Christ Lutheran School that the LORD has given in part, through the efforts of one of us through whom He has worked for the past ten years, our principal.

The question might occur to us (as we now see the walls being constructed on yet another school building): why has our church decided to operate a school on its campus? The answer can be discussed very efficiently through the use of our lessons for this morning—the ones we’ve read earlier (the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel lessons), and our sermon text we’ve just read, that focuses on some things Jesus said when He appeared at the Jewish Feast of Booths in Jerusalem.

This was at a time in Jesus’ three-year ministry in this world, in which people were divided on what to think about Him. They’d seen Him do amazing things like feed five thousand with a small amount bread and fish and heal a paralyzed man at Jerusalem’s pool of Bethesda; and they’d heard Him preach with great authority (He really seemed to know things about God and His kingdom that others didn’t). Everyone had been waiting for an individual the prophets had said God would be sending to save them—the Messiah, or Christ (who they would be able to recognize by Him doing things like this; like Jesus was doing). Could this be Him? Some were thinking so.

Most of the Jewish leaders weren’t convinced though, and thought Jesus was just some guy who was misleading the people (and taking their place for the peoples’ attention). Even Jesus’ own brothers had expressed earlier in this same chapter, that they didn’t really believe in Him. Just before our text, St. John tells us that the Pharisees have heard the muttering about Jesus possibly being the Christ, and therefore have sent officers to arrest Him (the officers end up going back to the Chief Priests empty-handed, saying, “No one ever spoke like this man!”).

We were thinking about the question: why has our church decided to operate a school on its campus? In discussing that question, I want to fine-tune our focus even more, on something Jesus says in this text: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

This is Jesus’ own contribution to the conversation about whether or not He’s the Christ. He refers to the Scriptures, indicating they speak of Him (they speak of Him providing living water for those who will come to Him). Isn’t it clear, that He’s referring to words like we read earlier from our Old Testament lesson: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. Of course, the water, and the being cleansed, and the new heart, and mention of the Spirit—all of it reminds us of the water of Baptism through which the Holy Spirit gives a new spirit, connecting us to Christ for faith and salvation.

Another of the lessons we read from earlier—the Gospel lesson talks about the Spirit bearing witness about Christ. He bears witness, as we said, by working powerfully in Baptism; but also in the Word about Christ that’s preached and read and taught.

He makes people believers in Christ through it. He enables them through faith, to come to Him in their spiritual thirst, and to drink (as He says in our text). He enables them to have this new heart that receives Him as God’s gift of grace.

Jesus talks in our text, about people thirsting. We should consider this to be similar to when He said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; for they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6), and when He said, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

In all of these cases, He’s talking about the burden of peoples’ sins. He’s talking about guilt. Every person has it. In fact, the Bible talks about us having it even from our conception. It’s inherited from our first parents. No one doesn’t have guilt. No one isn’t heavy laden. No one doesn’t thirst.

We see it in our own lives. One of things the students are taught in our school, is that God’s Commandments are to be looked at in one sense, as a mirror that shows them their sins. They learn, we don’t look at the commandments as the way to save ourselves (we can’t keep them perfectly as God requires; so that would never work). One of the most important purposes of them, then, is to demonstrate to us that we’re sinners who are guilty before God. We need Him to intervene in our situation. We need Him to remove our sins (of being unkind to each other, for instance, and of thinking and saying disrespectful things to our parents and others who are in authority). We need Him to forgive us for being ungrateful for what He has given us, and for doubting Him and being disinterested in hearing from Him. And these are just a sampling of some of the things for which each one of us is guilty before God, and according to our nature, unfit for His heavenly kingdom. So, the students are taught to acknowledge their sinfulness.

They need to know this because if this guilt were to remain with them as they stood before God on the Last Day, they would have to be punished for it; and the punishment is hell (being separated from God’s love, His protection, His comfort, forever). So, it certainly isn’t what anyone would ever want. Those who are thirsting, as Jesus talks about in our text are looking at this situation, and saying to themselves, I don’t want that! How do I escape this? Is there any alternative for me, rather than this everlasting punishment? And there’s an urgency to it. St. Peter says in our epistle lesson: the end of all things is at hand. Another way of saying that is, now’s the time. Now’s when it needs to be prepared for.

Again, we were thinking about the question: why has our church decided to operate a school on its campus? Well, a very big part of the reason is that we recognize this urgency. We hear of Christ saying, as He does in our text: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,’” and we recognize that among other things, operating a school gives us the opportunity to lead more people to the living water that quenches their thirst for all eternity, to lead them to Jesus.

One of the ways to look at the uniqueness of a school like ours is to consider what St. Peter says in our epistle lesson. Isn’t he really discussing there, what godliness looks like in this world. He’s discussing what it looks like when believers reflect toward the world what God has done for them. People who’ve been brought to the understanding of their sin and of God’s grace to forgive the sin, can be encouraged like Peter does in that lesson: to keep loving one another earnestly. He talks about willingly showing hospitality to one another. He speaks of serving one another—making use of the specific gifts that God has given to each individual. As sort of a catchall, he says that everything should be done so that God is glorified through Jesus Christ.

It’s from that motivation that our school encourages godly behavior among the students (recognizing at the same time that sometimes students and staff fall short of godliness, and need in their penitence, to hear God’s absolution, the declaration that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake.

By God’s grace, our little church has gathered an incredible faculty and staff, who have pursued excellence as individuals, and are able to work together to provide an outstanding educational experience to our students, that prepares them to pursue their own excellence in this world. But even more important to us as a church, is having this opportunity to lead the thirsty to where their thirst is quenched, to lead the weary and burdened to their Savior, Jesus.

The students hear daily about what we refer to as Jesus’ active and passive obedience. He obeyed actively, by doing everything that’s required under the Law. You and I have failed at it because we have a nature that opposes God; but Jesus has done it perfectly, and done it perfectly in our place. And Jesus has obeyed passively by allowing Himself to be crucified as the payment for all peoples’ sins. So His perfection is considered by God to be your perfection. His payment has been accepted as the payment for your guilt. His punishment is accepted as the punishment you deserved. And what has happened to the sins that separated you from God, that dictated that you must be punished? They have been forgiven entirely. Jesus was punished for them in your place.

What a joy it is to preach and teach that message to the students in our school, so that their burden is carried now by the one Who took it from them, their Savior, Jesus. Believing in Him, out of their hearts too, flows rivers of living water.

God has blessed our school greatly through the work of one of its servants, Christopher Dale, over the past ten years. We give thanks for this great blessing in Christ’s Name. Amen.

Other Lessons for Today:

Ezekiel 36:25–27

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

1 Peter 4:7-11

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

St. John 15:26-16:4

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

Luke 11:9-13

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Earlier in St. Luke’s eleventh chapter (where our text comes from), the disciples had asked that Jesus teach them to pray; and He’d taught them what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. And then, He’d set out an illustration for them.

The illustration encouraged a very persistent asking of God’s help (which indicates a very persistent offering of that help on His part, right?). The asking was to be so persistent, that were it a person asking for assistance from his friend, the friend (who was being inconvenienced late at night) would be so overwhelmed with the repeated, with the incessant asking, that he would finally give up and help him out.

That’s what comes right before our text. Jesus was telling His disciples, that’s how persistently, how earnestly they should pray to the Father.

In a certain place in the book of Acts, it lauds the devoutness of a particular man, saying about him that he prayed continually to God (Acts 10:1-2). That frequency of praying goes well with Jesus’ illustration. Jesus is encouraging the same in our text with the words, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Again, we said, that the fact of us being encouraged so strongly to ask indicates God’s very strong interest in helping us.

Why wouldn’t we do this, then, right? Why wouldn’t we make use of the opportunity, (according to God’s command, even!), to go to him for our needs in prayer?

We can understand why unbelievers wouldn’t do it; they wouldn’t care about God’s command, and wouldn’t see any use in it. But I’m not talking to that crowd here; you are believers who are moved by Holy Spirit. You know of God’s grace. So, why wouldn’t you want to pray?

Well, it might occur to us that God’s prophet Isaiah once spoke these words to the people:

your iniquities have made a separation
    between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
    so that he does not hear (Isaiah 59:2).

And when we read those words, it reminds us that we have situations in our lives in which we find it awkward to go to someone with some sort of request, or even just to talk with the person. It’s awkward when we know they have something against us. We wonder where we stand with the person. How are they going to receive us? Will they slam the door in our face? Hang up the phone in disgust? Will they receive us that way?

And You might ask, Will God receive me that way? Can I approach Him even as a sinner, even feeling so guilty about my sins, even with nothing to offer to make anything right? Will He receive me mercifully? Will it be to my good, or to my harm? It becomes a certain sort of doubt, doesn’t it; a sort of unbelief? God is offering; and you are wondering whether it’s on the up and up, whether what He’s offering is really there for you.

I was preparing this message out on my back porch the other day, and I saw a little lizard inside the screen (where there isn’t any food, and where it will die if it remains there). But, of course, my effort to “save the poor little creature” was in vain. He kept running from me. He was afraid that I was out to hurt him rather than to help.

In answer to peoples’ objection that perhaps God is out to hurt rather than to help (that Jesus anticipates in our text), He makes a reasonable argument: What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? We read those words a moment ago, about peoples’ iniquities, their sins making a separation between them and God. Leading into that, Isaiah has this to say:

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
    or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; [so, it isn’t that God’s goodness doesn’t exist or has somehow gone away]

But then He goes on to say those words,

but your iniquities have made a separation
    between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
    so that he does not hear

So, he’s saying, this distance isn’t on God’s part; it’s on your’s. It isn’t that He doesn’t stand ready to have mercy on you in your penitence (to help you in your need), but that your doubt, your unbelief prevents you from receiving it from Him. God doesn’t change; it’s your perception of Him that changes because of your guilt. You perceive Him as being unwilling to hear you and to help you. It’s awkward, you feel. How do you even approach when you know, nothing’s hidden from Him. How does God feel about me?—that’s what this really gets down to, right? How does God feel about me?

Our Old Testament lesson offers insight. 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 (Jeremiah 29:11ff). The prophet Jeremiah (there) is talking to God’s people a long time ago, the same crowd to whom Isaiah was speaking for the LORD those earlier words.

It means the same thing to us that it meant to them, though. God says to sinners of all times: ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. And it even goes on to mention His great desire to give you the Holy Spirit in your asking. So this isn’t just about having enough money to pay the bills (though that’s important); it’s about receiving the solution to the even more important problem of your sin, too.

In my teaching of the Catechism the other day in the school, a question came up in the workbook, about whether or not someone who’d sinned the day before should come to communion. Jesus once said, “Those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick (Matt. 9:12).” Theologians have referred to the Lord’s Supper as the medicine of immortality. The spiritually sick go to receive the medicine that makes them well.

Pastor Faugstad had a good statement related to this the other day in chapel. He noted that sick people don’t say to themselves, I’ve got to wait till I’m well before I can go see the doctor to get medicine. How silly would that be?! When you’re sick is when you go. And again, Jesus refers to a spiritual sickness that people have for which He has come to help.

There’s a real connection between prayer and the Supper in that in both, we’re going to the LORD to provide for us what we need in our brokenness, in our unworthiness, in our lostness. It’s clear in both, that we’ve been invited to do so. Prayer isn’t a Sacrament like the Lord’s Supper; but those other things, the two have in common.

So, the answer to that question in the Catechism workbook is, of course, that person who sinned yesterday should go to the Lord’s Table in repentance and in faith to receive Christ’s body and blood for his benefit. I asked the student who was answering the question, “On what day haven’t we sinned?” That’s what the whole thing’s for. We’re receiving God’s grace and His comfort and His strengthening to sustain us as we wait for Him in this world.

All of it is there for you in Christ, your Savior, Whose record is spotless. The One Who never had any doubts or unbelief has made payment for you and I, who have. His perfect blood has paid the price. Your sins are forgiven. You are connected to Christ through faith. In Him you need have no fear of God, of approaching Him as He has invited you to do. He’s the one Who says, I have no pleasure in the death of anyone…so turn, and live (Ezekiel 18:32).

Do you know you’re guilty before God? Do you regret what you’ve been? Jesus is inviting you in our text to receive the grace that God is offering. In Christ’s Name, go before God with all of your concerns related to this world and the next. His very strong encouraging of it indicates His very strong interest in helping you. What He’s offering is really there for you.

In Christ, you have forgiveness and salvation. Along with it, God invites you to ask and receive all other needed things (to ask in confidence as His dear child). Amen.

Other Lessons Today:

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 16:23-30

[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.”

Matthew 10:24-33

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.

“So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

11 Who clings with resolution
To Him whom Satan hates
Must look for persecution
Which never here abates;
Reproaches, griefs and losses
Rain fast upon his head,
A thousand plagues and crosses
Become his daily bread. (ELH #157)

We say sometimes: don’t lose heart. There are times in this life when things get very difficult, and it’s difficult for us to have the courage that we need, or the resolve to follow through with whatever it is we’ve undertaken, without anything stopping us from it. Don’t lose heart is the encouragement someone might give, to weather it, to endure in the struggle. Finally, we have a limit of how much we can take, though, right. Where does that leave us?

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master”—Jesus says in our text. Seems like a pretty obvious truth, doesn’t it? But the path of His superior position is a path of suffering. It’s a path of being the target of peoples’ scorn and hatred. And by His statement He means to say, that those who follow Him won’t escape this difficult path; they’ll walk it behind Him. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul [or Satan], how much more will they malign those of his household—He says. The people who haven’t liked Him also won’t like His disciples, is what He’s saying. He’ll go on to say later, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you (John 15:18).

So, the persecution that their Lord must endure is coming also to them. Jesus discusses how they should respond to it. And it isn’t something they should do as much as something they shouldn’t, namely (they shouldn’t): have [any] fear of [the persecutors] (a pretty tall request when it comes to the inevitability that people will be aiming to hurt them in every conceivable way).

This reminds us that sometimes, we lose heart. Something comes up that really scares us or is so difficult.

We think about the night when Jesus was arrested. While He was with His disciples beforehand, He talked to them about how difficult it was going to be. Peter said to Him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away (Matthew 26:33).”

And we know what happened. After Jesus was arrested, and Peter was in the courtyard of the High Priest, he got scared. He was around people, and someone started accusing Him of being with Jesus (a dangerous thing in that moment—with Jesus across the courtyard being raked over the coals, being lied about by false witnesses). Peter started getting really scared, and he said, I wasn’t with Jesus; I’m not one of His followers. He said it a couple of times. In fact, by the end, Matthew says, Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man (Matthew 26:74).” In his fear he couldn’t put enough distance between himself and Jesus so far as he was concerned.

It’s important that we recognize that as sin. He doesn’t get a pass because he’s scared. Jesus says at the end of our text: everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

That’s what it is to lose heart. Peter had thought he was going to be courageous, he was going to be so faithful to the Lord, never deny Him like that. But when it got very difficult, he did, and afterwards he was so sad about it. It says he went out and wept because he was so sad that he had lost heart like that, and had denied his Savior (Matthew 26:75). Later, after Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples had been so disillusioned, that they were inconsolable, doubting at first the testimony of the women who’d been to the tomb, then only able to be convinced of Jesus’ having risen when they saw his hands and feet, and touched the wound in his side. They’d lost heart there too. And Jesus rebuked them for it.

And of course, we always have to recognize the connection we share with these disciples and with all other sinners. We lose heart. Things get difficult, and we doubt, we despair. We fear the world, and we deny.

Jesus is trying to get His disciples used to the idea that being His followers will make them outlaws in this world. At that moment it hadn’t yet gotten as bad as it was going to get. In their minds it was still something that could happen, but hadn’t yet happened.

It’s the same for you. You’re under the same pressure. Either you’ve dealt with the kind of hostility directly, that Jesus is talking about in our text, or quietly, you’ve dealt with the knowledge that the arrows of the world’s scorn that land on Christ and His followers also belong on you. You deal with the thought that maybe one day you’ll be Peter in the courtyard, with Christ’s enemies calling upon you to say which side you’re on: theirs or His. Can be a terrifying prospect. We think of our failures in the past, and wonder about the strength of our resolve in a time like that.

But you know a couple of things that are important in lifting your spirits (like Christ is doing for His disciples in our text). First of all, there isn’t a trace of your sins in your LORD, who endured the greatest suffering faithfully, never wavering, never having a weakening of His resolve. Fear and discouragement never caused Him to fail in His obedience, in His trust of the heavenly Father.

His unwavering faithfulness in the face of the worst suffering stands as your record before God because yours of faithlessness and disobedience and denial stood as His record, and as the crimes for which He was punished. You are entirely forgiven and stand under God’s grace. So, it isn’t even about the strength of your resolve; it’s His on your behalf.

And there’s another thing. When we talk about the book of Revelation in the Bible, even though there are a lot of details that can be discussed, often we talk about it very simply, not getting bogged down in all of the symbolic language. We summarize it’s overarching message with a simple statement like this: Jesus wins, and we—His followers—win with Him. That’s what the book of Revelation is about.

Jesus is saying sort of the same thing in our text. When He’s talking about covered things being revealed, hidden things being made known, He’s kind of saying, nobody’s getting away with anything here. God is in control of it all. Nobody’s more powerful than He is. Jesus says it in our text like this: do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Jesus is telling His disciples with that statement, God is only one who is capable of really hurting you; so you might as well not be afraid as long as He’s on your side. Those who position themselves against Him can’t win. Even if they kill you in this life you win, not them.

And as an extra encouragement here, Jesus lets us in on something we might never have thought of: God takes care of the birds (and everything else in the creation for that matter). Not even a sparrow falls from the sky without His knowledge. And if that’s on His radar, think about the fact that He knows the number of hairs on your head. How much more important to Him aren’t you, who are made in His own image? His stated desire is that one day you emerge from this world that passes away, to the eternal one that He has prepared for you in heaven.

He has seen to the matter of your sins that had no other solution than the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. He has drawn you to Himself in faith through the waters of Baptism, through the truth of His Word. He nourishes your faith in the Supper.

Christ’s followers are outlaws in this world. But to the end, we who have our limit, and who have fallen short at times acknowledge our Savior Whose limitless resolve earned our forgiveness and salvation, we look at our sufferings as evidences that we are disciples of our Teacher, servants of our Master, who walk behind Him on our way to where our sufferings will end, to where there is only joy at His side.

12 All this I am prepared for,
Yet am I not afraid;
By Thee shall all be cared for,
To whom my vows were paid.
Though life and limb it cost me,
And all the earthly store
Which once so much engrossed me,
I love Thee all the more. (ELH #157)

Amen.

Matthew 10:16-20

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

St. Paul writes in his New Testament letter to the Romans, that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8:22). He means that there’s this longing to be restored to the Creator after having been apart from Him (because sin and corruption separated the creation from the Creator). After a waiting time (like the time of a pregnancy), this reunion happens fully on the Last Day when Christ returns.

We’ve heard from the New Testament; we turn to the Old Testament, then. There’s a Psalm in which the writer says, The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season (Psalm 145:15).

Those two passages are related in the idea that everyone, whether it’s recognized or not, is dependent upon the LORD, Who made all of this. We depend on Him for the needs of our bodies and our souls.

Isn’t dependency also brought out in our other lessons that we’ve read this morning?

In the Epistle lesson for instance (found on pp.10-11 in the bulletin): God’s people see themselves as sojourners and exiles, it says (they merely pass though this world on their way to God’s eternal kingdom). They wait on the Lord’s justice, even suffering and enduring until He delivers them.

And it’s in the Gospel lesson. God’s people weep and lament for a little while here, waiting patiently, later rejoicing eternally (being with Him in His kingdom).

This theme of dependance upon the Lord is certainly also in our text. It’s in the need of the people to whom Jesus’ disciples are sent. And it’s in the need of those who are being sent (sent out as sheep in the midst of wolves to bear witness about Him). They need courage and strengthening and comfort from the Lord to serve faithfully as His witnesses. The disciples are instructed not even to be anxious about what they’re going to say, because the Spirit is going to be the one doing the speaking through them.

We talked last week, about this dependence that everyone has on the Lord when it comes to having faith, to believing His Word. We said we can’t do that without God bringing it about, because our resistant sinful hearts would always refuse it unless God is working to overcome that resistance. That’s why Martin Luther (after whom our church body is named) wrote, in the meaning to the Third Article of the Creed: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit has called me.

What a good set of lessons on a Sunday upon which we Baptize two young children into the Christian faith. How fitting, that we talk about this dependance we have on God, on this occasion. Again, we depend on Him to provide the faith in our hearts that turns our entire prospect. Without His intervention we perish in our sins because then, we are fully accountable for our own guilt. Hell would be the only place for us in that condition. But with this faith that the LORD provides, we are relieved of the guilt. God’s own Son has the guilt instead of us, then. He has been made accountable for it, punished for it.

We are dependent upon God to provide for us faith that connects us to Christ, our Savior.

Here’s where all this talk about our dependence on God is leading on this particular morning: the Bible tells us that He provides faith for us in Baptism.

The way the providing of this faith is often talked about in the Bible is as a washing. Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins (Acts 22:16). St. Paul calls it the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), through which God saved us without us having done anything to earn it. “Regeneration”—that’s a big word. It indicates that we were dead so far our souls were concerned; and that in Baptism we were regenerated, given new life.

Our need of this regeneration is brought out in our text.

Jesus is sending out His disciples to tell about him. They go to what will be a hostile crowd, ones who will deliver them over to their courts, flog them in their synagogues, drag them before governors and kings.

And as soon as we’re inclined to think, What bad people those must be, with all of the delivering and the flogging and the dragging!—we realize we have the same sinful nature they have. We have inherited it from our first parents like they did (even the children among us; That which is born of the flesh is flesh, Jesus says—John 3:6).

This nature that you share with these hostile crowds has been evident in your own life every time you haven’t been eager to hear about Christ or to obey God’s other commandments. You might not have delivered or flogged or dragged anyone; but you’ve sinned in turning off your attention and your heart to God’s inviting just like they did. There would be good reason for you to look in your mirror and say, What a bad person that is!

We baptize because it connects us to Christ our Savior. He is God’s eternal Son, God Himself. He hasn’t inherited the same nature you have. He doesn’t have any sins. So, when He took your sins, your guilt upon Himself—being made guilty of them, the Bible says they were removed from you. They no longer condemn you like they did before. You are forgiven of them.

The Spirit would be speaking through the disciples when they were sent out (we hear that in our text). That’s the way it has to be if God’s message is going to penetrate sinful hearts, putting faith and salvation where there has only been resistance before. The Spirit has to do the speaking. The Spirit speaks to you through God’s Word.

And, He speaks through Baptism. He alerts you to the seriousness of your sins, urging you to repent of them before God, to put them away from yourself—no longer continuing in them. And He shows you the One Who took them and removed them entirely—your Savior, Jesus.

So, these parents have brought these young children here this morning in order that they might hear from the Spirit in the way God has provided, that they might have Him put faith in their hearts that connects them to Christ.

What could we as parents want more than that for our children? What could we want more than God taking them by hand and adopting them into His own family? What could we want more than Him introducing them to their Savior, Who took their sins upon Himself so that they could have His righteousness, so that they could be welcomed into His eternal kingdom?

God Himself has led all of us who are dependent upon Him (including these young children) to where we can find Him in His grace and mercy. The Spirit has spoken to us through His Word this morning. And He has spoken, through Baptism, into the hearts of these children who now know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. God be praised. Amen.

Other Lessons This Week:

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.

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.”

John 10:22-30

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Just before our text is a brief note from the writer. He mentions that there is some division among the Jews over what to think about Jesus. Some are saying, why listen to Him? Others are pointing out His Words and actions as a reason they should consider listening to Him.

We can see why the Bible says faith is brought about only through the power of God-The Holy Spirit, as He works in Baptism and the Word. God has to convince a person of the truth, or else he can’t know it. So, we preach the Word and we baptize according to God’s command.

If it were up to us to convince people that listening to Jesus is the thing they should do, it really wouldn’t be possible. Every heart naturally goes away from God (think of Adam and Eve hiding from Him in the Garden after they’d sinned), and must have Him powerfully motivating change if things are to go the other way. St. Paul talks about the natural mind of a person being hostile to God (Romans 8:7). He says in another place, that the natural person isn’t able to understand the things that come from God because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

That’s specifically why we baptize infants. In saying, That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6), Jesus is saying that even infants have this same heart, need this same motivating change from God. And He provides it through the Spirit’s work in Baptism. He gives faith so that the person can know God’s grace in Christ. How does it happen in an infant? We don’t know; that’s God’s business. But this need of theirs is clearly taught in the Bible, and we know God doesn’t have any limitations; so, we bring even infants to the Lord Who can do for them what we can’t.

Our text demonstrates that everyone has the same problem. It’s even true for people who were Abraham’s descendants, who were of the people known in the Bible as God’s people; their heart, too, naturally opposes listening to Jesus.

That’s who Jesus is talking to in our text—not to those who’ve never had any acquaintance with God, but to ones who’ve known His Word throughout their lives. These, who are Jesus’ fellow Jews, are gathered with Him in Jerusalem. They’ve known the Scriptures. They anticipate the coming of God’s Anointed One. That one’s coming, they know, will be accompanied with certain words and actions. The prophets have said this. Jesus’ audience have been anticipating the coming of this person all their lives. They should be able to recognize it when they see it.

And it’s evident to some of the Jews, that Jesus is this person Whose coming they’ve been anticipating. But again, there’s this division among the Jews over what to think about Him. The naysayers have argued that He talks like someone who must have a demon. The ones kind of arguing for Him, ask, Can a demon open the eyes of the blind (John 10:21)?

That’s the same kind of reasoning that Jesus uses in our text. They say, If you are the Christ, tell us plainly; He says, I told you, and you do not believe. So, He’s pointing to His words. And then He points to His actions. He says, The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me. He means they show that He is what the Scriptures had foretold that the Messiah or Christ would be.

When He talks in our Gospel lesson, about being the Good Shepherd, He is alluding to the things that are said in our Old Testament lesson. The LORD, as a shepherd, seeks out His flock, rescues them from the places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. Those words have their greatest fulfillment in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Who lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus’ hearers in our text haven’t seen the conclusion of that particular thing yet; they haven’t seen the cross and grave and Resurrection, but they’ve seen plenty. Opening the eyes of the blind (mentioned by some of them); well, that’s one of things the prophet Isaiah had said this Christ would do. To some who wondered one time, Jesus pointed out: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them (Matt. 11:5). It was another way of saying, You’re wondering if I’m the Christ. Of course I am, look what I’m doing. Look how the things I’m doing are what the prophets said the Christ would do.

But Jesus’ audience is divided. Again, we see in it the great problem that is our inherited sinful nature. It would always tend to say of Jesus, Why listen to Him?

If we think about it, this text can be looked at as a trilogy along with the Easter morning text, and last week’s text in this way: prior to Easter, Jesus had said He would rise from death, and it wasn’t believed. If anything, it had been rationalized in this way: Nobody rises from death; He must have meant something else. Then, on Easter evening He’d said He’s really risen from death, and it wasn’t believed. They’d rationalized it, thinking it must be a spirit they were seeing. Now, He says, I’m really the Christ, but He isn’t believed. Instead, they think He must have a demon.

The audiences were different; but it really doesn’t matter. That’s the point of all this: everyone has this same nature that refuses to listen to Jesus, refuses to believe His clear words and works. To these last ones it’s like He has said, I’m really the Christ, and they’ve said, No, tell us plainly, Who are you?

It goes against your very nature to listen to Jesus, to believe the things the Bible says about Him. It’s important to recognize that, because then it isn’t so startling to think that at times you’ve had doubts about it, that at times you’ve tried (along with the world) to rationalize things about Jesus to make them make more sense to you, to make them seem less un-believable.

One of the ways you might have done this is to doubt whether Jesus could really make you right with God, without you having to help in the matter. Could He really take your guilt on His shoulders as the Bible says He has? There’s a lot of it, you’ve thought to yourself. There’s so much! Just as stridently as the disciples had questioned of Jesus’ resurrection, How could it be?—you might have questioned in this matter: How could it be that this person [pointing to self] that falls so short of God’s glory, that adds to the debt of guilt every day—how could it be that Jesus could take it all away so that I could be made fit for God’s kingdom, without me having to (or even being able to) contribute anything to it?

You might even have asked these things with skepticism (in your skepticism you’d have been standing shoulder to shoulder with the disciples, by the way). And now, here you sit in this church this morning, brokenhearted, miserable in the thought of it. You’re among those Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes. You’re the poor in spirit. You’re among those who mourn. You share the sentiment of the man who said to Jesus one time: “I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24)!”

Now, think of what it means that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. What a picture that is for you. In one of our hymns, O Dearest Jesus, there’s that line in the fourth verse that says:

What punishment so strange is suffered yonder!

The Shepherd dies for sheep that loved to wander;

The Master pays the debt His servants owe Him,

Who would not know Him.

Now, think about Jesus’ words in our text: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. What words could be more sure than those, could bring more comfort? My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

The fact is, your listening and your following have fallen short. But those words are spoken by the One without any sins. They’re spoken by the One whose life never had any sinful doubts in it like yours has; so His sacrifice made payment for yours. He has put Himself in your place. God has forgiven your doubts and your other sins because Jesus has put Himself in your place. Before God it looks like you’ve never committed them; He looked at Jesus as if He had, and punished Him for them. Justice has been served, then. Your sins are forgiven because the Good Shepherd has laid down His life for you. His rising from death is the evidence that it worked! Your sins really were paid for. Jesus has made you right with God without anything more being required of you. The Holy Spirit has made you aware of Jesus’ worthwhile Words and actions. He gives you eternal life. Amen.

Ezekiel 34:11-16

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

1 Peter 2:21-25

To this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

St. John 10:11-16

[Jesus said], “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

St. Luke 24:36-47

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Our text takes place on the same day as the Resurrection. Remember, that the angel in the tomb had told the bewildered women not to be afraid, they’d come looking for Jesus; but He wasn’t there, He’d risen. They were to tell the disciples that He was going before them to Galilee. There they’d see Him just as He’d said (Mark 16:6-7). So, on the evening of that same day (Easter Day), Jesus joins the disciples as they’re presently locked up in a room (afraid of being hunted down as Jesus’ followers).

And it’s interesting how it all goes. In our Gospel lesson we have St. John’s account of the same evening (our text is St. Luke’s account). St. John includes the detail, that one of the disciples, Thomas, hadn’t been there with the others when Jesus appeared to them. He’d been reluctant, then, to believe they’d really seen Him as they’d said (He’d doubted). Thomas is often referred to that way—fairly or not— as Doubting Thomas. Of course, Jesus had appeared again the next week when Thomas was present with the others, and had said to him, Do not disbelieve, but believe. Most of what people know about Thomas is this, that he doubted that it could be true that Jesus was really alive, not having seen it for himself.

Him being so famous for that is why it’s interesting how it all goes in our text. The disciples have been there in the room, waiting for Jesus (as the angel had told them to do). Jesus appears to them, greeting them with the words, Peace to you.

Again, considering how famous Thomas is for having doubted, we might expect to find these other disciples had been been pillars of faith in the similar moment, right? They must have jumped for joy at seeing the LORD because they weren’t hesitant at all to believe they were seeing Jesus standing in front of them, raised.

But that isn’t what our text says. Isn’t it true, that Jesus is having to do the same convincing with them that our Gospel lesson says He had to do with Thomas the following week? St. Luke tells us they were startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a spirit. Jesus says to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? And then, He does for them exactly what He will do for Thomas the following week; He shows them His hands and feet (where the nails were). He invites them to touch the places, feeling for themselves that it’s Him. He reasons with them in the same way He will with Thomas: a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as He has. He even asks for something to eat so that He might demonstrate that function of someone who is in the body (not of any spirit).

We bring this up because the same sort of doubting, the same sort of hesitance when it comes to believing Jesus’ Words tends to apply to us too—just like to Thomas, and to his fellow disciples. Jesus had asked them to believe His Words, to believe that He would rise from death. But people just don’t do that; they don’t rise from death! That’s the sort of difficulty they were having with it. How could it be?

You have the same challenge every Sunday. The pastor holds up before your eyes a wafer of what looks like mere bread and says, (Here’s a piece of bread? No.) This is the true body of Christ. Another comes along and holds up before your eyes a cup or cups containing what looks like mere wine and says, (Here’s a cup of wine? No.) This is the true blood of Christ.

Now, every one of you who communes in our church has been instructed and has confessed that you believe the pastor’s words, you believe that the mere bread and wine—consecrated as they are with Christ’s Words—have been mysteriously joined with His true body and blood for your real benefit (for the remission of your sins, Jesus says). That’s what you’ve been instructed to believe, and have confessed that you believe.

Haven’t you, though, had the same moments of difficulty with it that the disciples have been having anticipating this moment of Christ’s appearance to them risen in the flesh? Haven’t you been tempted like some other Christians have, to rationalize it in some way, to think, Christ must not have meant what He said; He must not have meant that the bread is His body, that the wine is His blood. How could it be?! That just doesn’t happen! He must have meant it can remind you of His body and of His blood, or that it should be taken as a symbol of those.

We can imagine the disciples were thinking the same when they were hearing Jesus say He would rise again from death, right? How could He mean that? He must mean something else. And seeing Him, evidently they were thinking, this can’t really be Jesus in the flesh; so it must be a spirit. But Jesus isn’t confirming that sort of thinking when He appears to them in our text. He isn’t saying to them, Yeah, yeah, you’re right; I didn’t really mean what I said. Instead, He shows them His hands and feet. He gives several evidences that indicate He meant exactly what He said. What has happened is every bit as amazing as the thing He’d said was going to happen. It doesn’t just look like He’s risen; He really has risen from the dead. He demonstrates in this text, that His Words can be believed—and should always be believed. They should be believed also when He says, This is My body, which is given for you…this is My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins.

But you have the same nature as the disciples, and no doubt, at times, have questioned, How can it be so? How can Jesus’ Words be true? And to you also, He might rightly say as to the disciples in our text, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?—As if to say, Is there anything that’s impossible for God? Is there anything I can’t do? Do I ever speak things that aren’t the truth?

Look how Jesus addresses their sin of doubt in our text: He speaks reassuringly to them. He reminds them of what He has said. He reminds them of what the Scriptures have said, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. He opens their minds to understand better. He forgives them for their doubts.

He has done the same for you, dear sinner. He makes Himself present for you here, in Word and Supper every week. He opens your heart to understand better through the work of the Holy Spirit. His Supper is for the very purpose of giving you this sort of reassurance. So, actually, it’s a great blessing to have this opportunity every week, to put your trust in this mysterious, amazing thing He says to you, This is My body, which is given for you…this is My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins—to believe that it means exactly what it says, that there isn’t any need for you to parse it or interpret it in some way according to your corrupted human reason (all that does is remove all the joy in it anyway). Christ’s Words were reliable for the disciples when He told them He would rise from death—He demonstrates that in our text. They’re reliable for you as well.

One more thing about this text: Jesus’ words at seeing the disciples, Peace to you!—are more than a mere greeting, more than a mere wish (though, when other people say those words, that’s what they are). Jesus is the One Who brings peace about. Those words from Him are connected to what the angel said to the shepherd when announcing His birth in Bethlehem, peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Those words meant the One Who’s born there has been sent to bring about the only thing that could reestablish peace between God and His fallen creation, the atoning sacrifice of His only-begotten Son.

It makes perfect sense, then, for Him to greet His disciples that way following the Resurrection; because in overcoming death, He has established finally and completely, that this peace with God has been brought about. It is for the disciples, who are hearing the Words from Him in our text. It is for you, who hear them this morning as presented in our text. You have peace with God in Christ. Your sins are forgiven in Him. There is no need for you to be troubled. This One Who has never doubted or sinned in any other way has been put in your place, and you in His. God be praised. Amen.

Other Lessons from today:

Job 19:25-27

I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

1 John 5:4-10

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.

St. John 20:19-31

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Exordium:

There is a critical message for you to hear on this Easter morning—that is, if death is of concern to you. If you dread what you might face in death, then this morning’s message is critical for you.

Do you agonize over your sins, thinking in your quietest moments, along with St. Paul, that the good you want to do is not always what you’ve done, and about the significance of that when it comes to standing before God on the Last Day?

The Easter message contains good news for you where that’s concerned; a very critical thing that had to be the case was demonstrated on that day to be the case. You have reason to be confident before God on that day; you’ll hear about that in the Easter message.

You can find the same confidence in this message, even if you have currently been struggling in sin, and are troubled by it. Have you given in to sin, letting it control you so many times, that you feel like a total hypocrite even presuming to come before God in repentance? Do you wonder how God can forgive even you, even of all this? Your forgiveness and salvation in the risen Savior is proclaimed in His powerful Word —even for you—this morning.

In answer to all the accusations in your conscience, to your anxious heart, go see in the empty tomb the miracle of God’s love. Hear the angel’s words, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here.” This is where the joy comes from, which we now sing in our festival hymn verse: #348 – “He Is Arisen, Glorious Word”

Sermon:

Dear disciples of Christ who have come to the place about which He told you, to hear the news of His Resurrection:

Psalm 118:17 

I shall not die, but I shall live, and declare the works of the Lord.

We’re going to call the first part of our message this morning:

Why dying is even an issue

With the words, I shall not die, but I shall live, the Psalmist addresses your chief concern, doesn’t he? Is there anything more critical than that? Dying is the dread for which no one has an answer. We can’t avoid it even though we want desperately to do so. Otherwise, why does he say it like that? Why does he talk about death like something he’d prefer to escape in favor of living? I shall not die, but I shall live.

Avoiding death is certainly what the Israelites had in mind on the night of the Passover (St. Paul refers to it in our epistle lesson). God had given them instructions on avoiding it. That night, death was coming as the final plague on everyone in Egypt who would ignore God’s warning. Specifically, the angel of death would kill the firstborn in every household not following God’s instructions, not having its doorposts and lintel painted with the blood of an unblemished sacrificial lamb.

And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead (Exodus 12:30); that’s what the writer tells us about the non-Israelite, non-believing homes. There was a great cry. They were in distress over the loss of lives in this world.

It was even worse than they knew, though. Death’s issue is more than ceasing to exist in this world. Again, otherwise, why does God’s eternal Son assume human flesh; why does He present Himself humbly as the payment for sinners (the Passover, Paul says in our epistle lesson, Who is sacrificed for us)? There’s more on the other side of death than a person’s absence from this world.

Your conscience testifies, telling you that you have a debt of guilt that must be paid (Scripture does it too, of course, with statements like, the soul who sins shall die—Ezekiel 18:4). Your sins have consequences. We said the words in our Ash Wednesday service at the beginning of the Lenten season just past; along with the smudged cross on your forehead were the words, “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” Our death in this world is the result of our rebellion against God that began with our first parents and continues with us today.

But the end of this life isn’t all there is to it; that isn’t the only consequence of sin. Think of what it means when Jesus says on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He isn’t just saying, Why’d you let me suffer this temporal death, this death of the body in this world, this death that brings about a person’s absence from this world? Many, many, many, many people have suffered that. He’s talking about the punishment that rightly comes to a person after death in this world. He’s talking about being separated from the Father’s love, from His protection, from any hope. He’s talking about suffering hell. That’s why the Psalmist says it like he says it in our text. It’s why he talks about death as, obviously the thing nobody wants.

And it’s penalty, it’s punishment, it’s condemnation doesn’t just come to worst of sinners. It doesn’t just come to people who drive vehicles into crowds to kill as many as possible, or to sex-traffickers, or to swindlers who call up elderly people to try to steal their retirement savings. The fact that every person dies in this world is the evidence that every person is included in its penalty. Every person has inherited Adam’s guilt and the nature he had that sins. You have too.

That’s why death is an issue. The women weren’t going to the tomb on Easter morning with joy in their hearts, because they knew what death is; it’s the curse on sin. It looked to them as though even Jesus was succumbing to it (what a dreadful prospect that was).

The first part of our message was, Why death is even an issue. We’re going to call the second part of our message:

The “works of the Lord” that remove death as an issue

The Psalmist had said he shall not die, but live. And then he had said, and declare the works of the Lord.

We declare extraordinary works, right? Those are the works we declare. We point people’s attention to what is unusually great. So, you might understand the disappointment of the women going to the tomb on Easter morning. What works are there to declare about a savior with the same problem all the rest of us have? What is extraordinary about a savior that’s under the same curse as everyone else? What savior is that?

Nothing seemed extraordinary about the situation. There was a death, there was burial, there’d been a few days in between; now, there would be an anointing of another body like the anointing they’d done on many others before. They’d do this ordinary work that gets done in this world in which people die, and then they would go back home with the presumption that one day it would be them. One day someone would be anointing their body for burial without any hope in terms of what comes after. According to that scenario, the speaker in our text might just as well say the opposite of what he says. He might just as well say, I shall not live, but die (and face the punishment that comes to sinners according to their nature). What else to say?

That’s the stakes on Easter morning. If the Savior remains a dead savior, then He’s no savior. Then, what would St. Paul’s words in our epistle lesson even mean: Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us? In what way could it be for us, could it benefit us if He was to remain dead in the grave? Then, how could He be the fulfillment of what had been presented in the foreshadowing of sacrificial lambs in Old Testament worship. Those stood in for a Savior Who was to be coming, Who was to be truly making atonement (or payment) for sins with His own sacrificial blood on a cross.

But the one who could accomplish that doesn’t have the same problem all the rest of us have, isn’t under the same curse as everyone else. That one can’t be overcome by the same dread for which no one has an answer.

So then, what words could be more monumental, dear sinners, than those of the angel in the tomb that morning?! Having gotten past the stone that mysteriously, had been rolled aside, and having seen the empty tomb, what words could have soothed more completely than He is risen! He is not here. What could change everything so much as those words? Christ has been raised. Their faith hasn’t been in vain. Their hope in Christ for more than this life has been confirmed!

There aren’t any smoke and mirrors here, either. The angel says Jesus was crucified. It had even been proven out there on Calvary, when the soldier pierced His side in order to make sure. Nicodemus and Joseph had partially anointed His body for burial as the Sabbath approached. There wasn’t any question about it. He didn’t just look dead; He really was dead. And He had to be for any of this to mean anything.

You can have joy on this Easter morning because you have someone who did what needed to be done in order to be your savior. You have someone Whom death could not hold. You have the One Who really is the fulfillment of what the Old Testament sacrificial lambs foreshadowed. His blood really has paid for your sins. You have One Who really removes your guilt that otherwise required you to be punished eternally in hell. The Father forsook Him, and punished Him instead. Then the Father raised Him from the dead. Christ’s death and resurrection are the works of the Lord that have removed death as an issue.

So, your death doesn’t mean anymore what it once meant. Jesus’ overcoming of it in the Resurrection has changed the narrative. What had been the curse on sin is now the entrance to eternal life for you and all other believers.

Dear disciples of Christ who have come to the place about which He told you, to hear the news of His Resurrection: Go in joy and peace this Easter morning. Christ, your Passover, has been sacrificed, and is risen! Your debt is paid. Your sins are forgiven. God be praised! Amen.

_______________________________

Other Lessons:

1 Corinthians 5:6–8

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may have a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

St. Mark 16:1–8

Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said to themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go and tell His disciples— and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.” And they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Luke 19:28-40

And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

In our text there are those who are saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”

But not everyone is saying it. Not everyone is pleased to call Jesus King.

Pharisees are in the crowd as well—those ones who are always looking to their own righteousness as what makes them fit for God’s kingdom. To the shouts of “Blessed is the King…” they respond to Jesus: “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” They don’t want Jesus to be talked about with the same terminology that would be used to talk about the Messiah or Christ—the one God was sending as the savior.

Prior to our text in the same chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus had met Zacchaeus the tax collector who’d repented of his sins and even demonstrated it in pledging to make amends, and to whom Jesus pronounced forgiveness. Isn’t the Lord who does that, seen clearly in our lessons for today?

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah exhorts God’s people to rejoice and to shout aloud about this King Who comes to them righteous and having salvation, humble, speaking peace to the nations. Joy is the result of His rule. The people have everything good to look forward to, including the mercy that Jesus exhibits in His dealing with Zacchaeus.

St. Paul, in the epistle lesson, talks about the great humility of this King. He says that though He is in every way God, His objective in coming into this world, into human flesh, was to serve us—to put everything that would have happened to us because of our sins on Himself, to be brought as low as it’s possible to be brought. One of our Lenten hymns, “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” talks about the stunning visual of Jesus on the cross with Him groaning, with hands raised to wound Him and all the rest of it. But then he ends the verse saying, But the deepest stroke that pierced Him was the stroke that Justice gave—Justice capitalized, meaning it’s God that gave the deepest stroke. It’s talking about the kind of suffering that can’t really be shown in a movie; it’s what Jesus is describing when He says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He’s suffering hell for us when He says that.

That’s the serving-humility of this one that rides into Jerusalem in our text. It isn’t usually the way of a king; but it is of this one. It is of this one that you see kindly, mercifully dealing with the repentant sinner, Zacchaeus. He forgives him and welcomes him into God’s kingdom. It’s a beautiful moment that demonstrates why it’s so appropriate for people to shout, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

But we said not everyone is shouting that.

Going back in Luke’s Gospel again for a moment, that part about Zacchaeus: Pharisees who are there, grumble that Jesus is associating with this sinful man (Luke 19:5-7)—again, because they feel they themselves aren’t that (or, at least not so much that God would be concerned about it). They’re elevating themselves above someone who would be called a sinner.

After the brief account with Zacchaeus, Jesus had told the parable of the Ten Minas, about a nobleman going on a trip to a far country. When he came back, he’d be a king. Calling ten of his servants, [the parable goes] he gave [each of] them ten minas, [a certain amount of money that could be invested] and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’ But it says that his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us (Luke 19:13-14).’

That’s kind of like what’s happening in our Palm Sunday text, right? Pharisees are telling Jesus to stop letting these people call Him king (and really they mean, stop letting them call Him Messiah or Christ [because, that’s what “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” means to them]). And as an expression of the inevitability of it (It’s going to happen; Jesus is the eternal King), He responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Of course, in the parable, the man returns as king, and its interesting what they find in him. In rejecting him, they’ve chosen badly. And the end isn’t good for them because they made themselves this one’s enemies. But before they’re dealt with in this way, we get a glimpse of what they could have had. The man returns ready to reward them for their faithfulness. He isn’t the monster they’ve made him out to be. He says to the ones who’ve been faithful with what he has given, Well done, good and faithful servant.

Isn’t it clear from the things we’ve looked at, that that’s the kind of King this Jesus is? His disposition toward you is generous and merciful and loving. He deals with you according to the reality of your situation (a reality the Pharisees in our text aren’t willing to accept). Zacchaeus was though. He’d taken a long hard look at himself and realized that the perfection that God requires could never be found in him.

He wanted the exchange that God offers in His Son. He wanted to trade his sinfulness, his guilt for Christ’s righteousness.

Don’t you want the same, dear sinner? You aren’t in any different a situation, are you? You have guilt like Zacchaeus had. You have that thing you’ve said to someone in the past that you keep thinking of, and that you wish desperately you’d never said (or did that you wish you’d never done). If you’re a parent, you wish you’d been more faithful in it, more patient, more attentive, more forgiving. As a child of your parents, you wish you’d been more respectful, more obedient, more empathetic. Don’t you want, like Zacchaeus, to trade everything about you that’s fallen short of God’s glory, that you regret so desperately, in return for Christ’s righteousness? That’s the trade that this humble King is offering. It’s worth being excited about, like those people were on Palm Sunday.

A number of times I have pointed your attention to this quote from Martin Luther, the priest from about 500 years ago that our church body is named after:

Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am Your sin. You have taken upon Yourself what is mine and have given to me what is Yours. You have taken upon Yourself what You were not and have given to me what I was not.’ Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one. For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.”

Dear friends, shout with the Palm Sunday shouters: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Shout it because you know who this King is, that He is the one sent from heaven to make you righteous. He is the one so humble as to die for you on a cross. He is the one so merciful as to hear your heartfelt confession and respond with forgiveness. You have sins for which you’re guilty—even of Pharisaical self-righteousness that has sought to elevate yourself above other sinners, above being known as a sinner;

Jesus has no such guilt of His own. We sing in the Lenten Hymn, O Dearest Jesus, these words: “Of what great crime hast Thou to make confession; what dark transgression?” The answer is none. No crime, no transgression. He has only perfect righteousness (including perfect humility) that has been put in the place of your guilt. That’s why we say, Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! God is at peace with you now, because of this humble servant King who has come, making payment for your sins. You are forgiven in Him. God be praised. Amen.