Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kerrville Texas

1 Peter 4.7–11 + John 15.26—16.4

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

Jesus promises to send the Helper to the apostles. I mentioned this two weeks ago, but it’s worth recalling that the word translated “Helper” is paraklētos. A paraklētos stands by your side as an advocate, encourager, and guide. This is how the paraklētos whom Christ will send will help the apostles. The paraklētos Christ sends is from God the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.” Christ promises, not human or created help, but God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, whom St. Paul calls “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal 4:6) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). When the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles, Jesus says, “He will testify of Me.” They also will bear witness of Christ. because they have been with Him from the beginning of His ministry.  They will go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, as Jesus commanded them in Mark 16:15. They will make disciples of all the nations by baptizing and teaching, as Jesus commands them in Matthew 28[:19-20]. For this task they will have the Helper, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will give them the words to say and inspire their preaching so that their words are the very words of God Himself. The Holy Spirit will also testify to Christ with signs and wonders, miracles, and various gifts He gives to the apostles. The special gifts the Holy Spirit gives them will confirm the gospel they preach and show that they preach and teach by God’s command and with God’s authority. We will see the first of these special gifts next week when we celebrate Pentecost. Many more afterward will follow, just as Jesus told them in Mark 16, and we see many of them in the book of Acts. Through the miracles the apostles perform, the Helper confirms their teaching so that all who hear it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe (1 Thess 2:13).

There is another reason Christ promises to send them the Helper. “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” Jesus has told them these things about the Helper—the Holy Spirit—because they will be opposed. Even though they go into all the world with the word of God, with the gospel of forgiveness, new life, and eternal salvation, there are forces at work which do not want people to hear of the forgiveness of their sins, the power by which to lead a new and altogether different life, and eternal blessedness. The devil, who was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, who is a liar and the father of it (Jn 8:44), will fight against their preaching of the truth. The world, which hates Christ because He testifies that its works are evil (Jn 7:7), will oppose them as they preach against its works so that people repent and turn to Christ.  The sinful flesh of men, which lusts against the Spirit and is enmity against God, will do all it can to silence their message of judgment against sin and salvation through Christ.

Their opposition isn’t just for show. The devil, the world, and the sinful flesh aren’t paper tigers. They will silence the apostles by any means necessary. “They will put you out of the synagogues.” This is more than being asked to leave. It’s excommunication, declaring them to be outside the church and outside salvation as long as they preach that faith in Christ alone justifies sinners before God. The opposition the apostles will face runs deeper though. “Yes,” Jesus says, “the time is coming that whoever kills you will thing that he offers God service.” Those who kill the apostles will imagine that to murder them is God-pleasing worship since they believe them to be excommunicated, heretics cut off from the true Israel of God. Why will they do this? “These things will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. They think they know the Father, but they only know an idol, a god who looks, thinks, and acts remarkably like them. Since the apostles’ gospel exposes their religion as idolatry, their piety as false worship, and their good deeds as sins, the apostles must be opposed to the point of death. “But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” It is as if Jesus were saying, “Do not be discouraged when you are opposed. Do not let your faith in Me stumble when they excommunicate you, murder you, and say all kinds of evil against you for My sake. For as it was for Me in this world, so it shall be for you, as well. So that you may not stumble, I send the Helper to you to witness of me.”

This is the apostles’ lot—and comfort—in this world. Ministers who faithfully follow the apostles share in this lot—and comfort—in their lives. Sometimes the world and false church use persecution to silence faithful ministers. They are ejected from congregations and excommunicated by synods for teaching the gospel: that faith alone justifies sinners before God, not any works of our own, nor any justification prior to faith. The world and false church do its best to marginalize faithful ministers so that people shy away from them as if they were spiritual pariahs on the one hand and ignore them as irrelevant on the other. It is as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:13, “We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.” But like the apostles before them, ministers know this may be part of the reward of faithfulness. Ministers must know this because otherwise they would stumble in faith, perhaps never to rise again, at the different forms of opposition, some active, some passive, they must face. Yet there is the promise of Jesus to send the Helper, the Spirit of truth, to bless the ministry—not with signs, wonders, and miracles, by working effectively in those who hear the word.

This is the apostles’ lot—and comfort—in this world. It is the faithful minister of the gospel’s lot—and comfort—in this world. And it is your lot—and comfort—in this world, dear saints. As Christians, members of Christ’s body, you, too, face opposition from the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh. The devil, you know well, attacks you with all sorts of spiritual temptations to doubt God’s Word so that he may lead you into sin, and then if he succeeds, that he may lead you to despair of God’s mercy, so that, having stumbled, you refuse to rise in repentance and faith, thinking your sin too big for God to forgive. Then there’s the world which calls you ignorant and hateful because you won’t celebrate its sins as the height of virtue and affirm its wickedness as the pinnacle of truth. The world attacks the faith—and those who believe it—hoping to make you stumble in faith, perhaps to the point where you don’t rise again. Then there’s your own flesh, which lusts against the new man—and seeks to grieve the Holy Spirit and drive Him out by willful sinning.

But against all these opponents; against all their tactics and temptations, their leverage and lies, you have the Helper, the paraklētos, God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and makes us His temples, so that He might testify of Christ to us. He does this by calling to mind the divinely inspired witness of the apostles, whether we have read it or heard it preached. He dwells in us so that we stand against the opposition which the devil, the world, and our own flesh puts up against Christ, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5). The Spirit of truth dwells in our hearts by faith so that we may stand, as Peter says, serious and watchful in our prayers. The Helper dwells in our hearts by faith to increase His gifts in us, especially the gift of love, so that we have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins,” that is, keeping our minds focused on loving our neighbor and therefore away from sinning, and also bearing with others in love, forgiving their sins against us as they repent. The Helper is given to us so that we may administer the gifts God has given us for the sake of others, so that that might speak to people truthfully and lovingly, and so that we serve one another with the ability which God supplies.

The devil, the world and false church with it, and our sinful flesh will continue to oppose Christ. If we are called to suffer for Christ’s sake, then let us suffer according to His good and gracious will. But whatever we suffer, and whatever Christ’s church suffers, we know beforehand that these things must be, for Jesus has told us beforehand. He has also sent the Helper to dwell in our hearts, so that regardless of the crosses Christ sends, we will not be made to stumble, but to stand. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Acts 1.1-11 + Mark 16.14-20

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

Forty days after Christ’s resurrection He ascends to the right hand of God, the Father almighty. Being spatially minded people who are contained to a certain place at any given time, we assume that the right hand of God would be a spatial place, a location in heaven in which Christ now physically sits. But this is to think of Christ only in human terms and limit Him to a certain location. The Scriptures teach that the right hand of God is His power. The Lord says in Isaiah 48:13, “Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, And My right hand has stretched out the heavens; When I call to them, They stand up together.” His right hand—His almighty power—created the cosmos. After being saved from Pharaoh’s armies at the Red Sea, Moses sings, “Your right hand, O LORD, has become glorious in power; Your right hand, O LORD, has dashed the enemy in pieces” (Ex 15:6). The Lord’s right hand—His almighty power—saved Israel on that occasion and countless others. This is the right hand to which our Lord Jesus Christ ascends forty days after His resurrection. Not a specific place, as you are sitting that specific pew and I am standing in this specific pulpit. God’s right hand is His almighty power, as Jesus Himself told the Jews who tried Him, “Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God” (Lk 22:69).

But didn’t Christ, being the eternal Son of God, already possess God’s almighty power? Wasn’t He fully God before He ascended into heaven? Of course. He is of the same substance as the Father as we confess in the Creed. St. Paul says in Colossians 2:9 that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” When Christ ascends He does so with the same body which He assume in the womb of Mary, the same body which suffered, died, and was buried. When Christ ascended it was with the same resurrected body which still had the imprint of the nails that Thomas had wanted to touch.   The ascension isn’t for the benefit of His divine nature. He possessed the full power of God by virtue of His divine nature already. The ascension is for the benefit of His human nature. For Christ never shed His humanity, having taken it up for our salvation. Nor will He ever shed His human flesh, for by assuming our flesh, and remaining in our flesh, He ‘brothers’ us so that our Advocate before the Father in heaven knows our weakness and thus intercedes for us. These two facts of the ascension are of utmost importance for our faith, first, that Christ ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God, that is, to be enthroned in the power of God and second, that He ascended into this as fully God and fully man.

St. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:10 that He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And there’s the mystery of the ascension. Christ ascended that He might fill all things. Since the two natures in Christ are inseparable, as we said a moment ago, that means that the human nature shares in the attributes of the divine nature, one of which is ubiquity, or omnipresence, or in today’s language, “He’s in all places at all times,” according to both natures. There’s the mystery. Christ is present everywhere according to both natures. He is among us according to His divine nature AND His human nature. Human reason scoffs at this because human nature is fleshly and carnal. Human reason cannot imagine a person who is not bound by location, a person who is not circumscribed to one place at a time. But this is why Christ can exit Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb without breaking the seal on the tomb or rolling the stone away. This is why Jesus, on the evening of His resurrection, can pass through the locked door which conceals His terrified disciples from the bloodthirsty Jews. Christ now fills all things according to His divinity and His humanity, because He is One Christ, not two Christs. He is one person with two natures and those two natures share their attributes with one another, just as they did during the days of His earthly ministry when He would heal the sick with word and raise the dead with the touch of His hand. This is the ineffable and unfathomable mystery of Christ’s ascension: Christ, according to both natures, is everywhere at the right hand of God.

But we cannot rejoice that our Lord is everywhere. Christ does not wish to be sought everywhere in His creation, under every rock and in every sunset. A wise man once quoted another wise man, saying, “A God who is everywhere is as good as a God who is nowhere.” If Christ had left His apostles without instruction, they surely would have looked for Christ under every rock and in every nook and cranny of the world. St. Paul is true that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), but we cannot find Christ, according to either nature, in just any old place in all creation. People claim they can find God in all sorts of places. The golf course. The driving range. The church of St. Mattress of the Holy Pillowcase. And a host of other places. But a God who is everywhere is as good as a God who is nowhere. Christ is not to be found in any of those places. He is to be found in place where He said He would be, the place where His word is spoken over bread, “This is my body, given for you.” He is to be found in the place where His word is spoken over natural wine, “Take and Drink. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for you for the remission of sins.” Christ is everywhere according to both natures, human and divine, and that precisely what allows His very body and very blood to be present on our altar this morning and every Lord’s Day.

The ascension takes Christ away from us physically. The apostles experienced this as they gazed up into the heavens as Christ ascends into the clouds. But before His suffering and death Christ left His Word with them so that they would know exactly where to look for Him. The ascension of Christ is what makes is possible for Christ to say, “This is my body” and have that bread be what He says it is. The ubiquity, the omnipresence of Christ according to His human nature, makes is possible for Christ to be physically present in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. He does this so that He might always be present with His baptized ones to forgive their sins, to unite with them in the flesh, and to strengthen the faith He gives to them in Holy Baptism. In the Holy Supper Christ localizes Himself once again so that you know right were to find Him and so that you know exactly what He gives you. You don’t have to look under every rock of creation with uncertainty, “Have I found Christ, and if so, what can I be certain He is telling me in this rock, this sunset, this skyline, and the like?” There is no need to rush to and fro looking for Him, wondering what His will is for your life. In the Supper you see His holy will, how through the remission of sins He desires to break and hinder every evil counsel and will that does not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come. By giving you His true body and His true blood you see His will that He desires to strengthen you and keep you firm in His Word and faith until you die. A God who is everywhere is as good as a God who is nowhere. But a God who locates Himself in, with, and under bread and wine for you and your salvation, that is a God worth having. A God who would assume human nature only to shed it at His death, in His resurrection, or ascension, would not be a God worth having, for if He ever set aside His flesh He would cease to be our brother and advocate. But a God who assumes your human flesh so that He can bear all of your sin, your weakness, your fragility, and your sorrows, that is a God worth having for you know that He was made like you in every way, except without sin, so that He knows your temptations and still willfully forgives you when you confess your sins. Jesus is ascended to the right hand of the Father, but not for His own sake, but for your sakes. He ascends in triumph to be installed in the power of God the Father almighty so that His Words to you are true, the words which say, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” (Matthew 28:20) for your Jesus is not bound by location or time as you and I are. He is with you always, according to both natures, human and divine, and this is grasped only by faith. But He also promises to be with you physically in the Supper, for He has said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” Contrary to human reason, in opposition to fleshly imagination, and beyond all human explanation, your ascended Lord is present here today again in, with, and under the bread and wine to forgive your sins, to strengthen your faith, and to prepare your body for the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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James 1.22–27 + John 16.23-30

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

On the fifth Sunday after Easter, we are still in the upper room with Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed, listening to Him teaches His disciples before He goes to the Father. Today, He teaches them to pray. He tells them, “In that day—that is, after He ascends to His Father—you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Jesus had taught His disciples to pray on previous occasions. He had given them the Our Father. They knew that to pray is to ask God the Father for the things they need—especially the things He has promised to give—to let their requests be made known to God as Paul says it in Philippians 4:6. But now He teaches them to pray in a way they had not done yet. They are to pray in His name.

To pray in Jesus’ name means to approach God the Father directly. Praying in Jesus name means we approach His heavenly Father because of His merits and for His sake. We cannot approach God the Father in our own name, as if we are worthy in and of ourselves to ask Him for what we need. Nor can we approach God the Father through the name and merits of the saints for the same reason. During their lives they approached God in Jesus’ name, and there’s no word of Scripture telling us ask them to approach God for us or alongside us.  Jesus gives us direct access to God the Father in His name, so that we can ask Him for what we need as dear children as their earthly fathers for good things. And we know that He hears us and will answer us precisely because we do not come in our own name, or in the name of any other, but because we come in the name of His only begotten Son whom He loves.

Praying in Jesus’ name also means that we pray as Jesus prayed during the days of His humiliation. Too often people hear Jesus’ words, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you,” and fasten their hearts on the word “whatever” and ignore the rest of the sentence. They imagine that God will give them whatever they want in this life. They approach God the Father as if Jesus had promised to give them whatever their heart desires: Health, wealth, and every good thing in this life. They imagine all they need to do is name it and claim it since Jesus has said, “Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” But to pray “in Jesus’ name” is not a magic incantation to twist God’s arm into give you whatever our hearts and flesh desires, so that health, wealth, and whatever else we desire will be given to us unconditionally. He promises to give us all we need for this bodily life, and we know that God gives daily bread even to the wicked and unbelieving. We ask for earthly things in prayer, but the earthly blessings we always ask for conditionally, like David did as He crossed the Brook Kidron, the leper in Matthew 8, and as Christ prayed in Garden of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matt 26:39). And we trust that whatever God’s will is for us regarding the things of this life, it is good and gracious.

We pray for daily bread conditionally because God hasn’t revealed His will about what He will give us today, but we pray for the spiritual blessings Christ promised unconditionally, since Christ has told us precisely what God’s will is when it comes to these things. God the Father wants to forgive our sins every day, so we ask confidently for mercy in Jesus’ name each day. He wants to give us His Holy Spirit so that we believe His word and live according to it, so we ask for the Holy Spirit. He wants to continually give us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pt 1:3), so we ask, trusting that God has given us what we need in order to live a godly life, to daily put off the old man and live as the new man in Christ. To pray “in Jesus’ name” is to pray for the things He has promised to give, and He has promised these spiritual blessings, which are far greater than the worldly blessings He gives to believers and unbelievers alike. To pray “in Jesus’ name” is to pray for things as Jesus prayed for them, and even Jesus prayed for earthly things, “Thy will be done.” But when asking for spiritual blessings through Christ, we don’t say, “Thy will be done” because He’s told us that it is His will to give them to us, for He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph 1:3).

Then Jesus says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” The joy that comes is not the joy of having received that for which you asked. That’s part of it, yes. Who isn’t joyful when they receive their request? But more than that, the joy that fills us is the joy of knowing that we have direct access to God the Father in Jesus’ name. This is something that we often take for granted, but if we truly think about what Jesus is promising, we cannot help but be filled with joy. He says, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” We do not even need Jesus to pray for us! The Father loves us and wants to hear our prayers. This is not the agape love of John 3:16, “For so God so loved the world.” This is the love of friendship and enjoyment. He loves you in this way because you love His Son and know that Christ came forth from God. Because you love Christ by faith, God the Father loves you, dwells with you, wants you to ask for what you need, and wants to give it to you. We’re happy when we receive what we ask for, but we’re filled with joy when we consider that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, loves us this way.

He even encourages us pray despise the fact that knows all things already, including what we will ask for in prayer. In the gospel for two weeks ago, when Jesus tells them about the little while in which they will not see Him, John tells us, “Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, “Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said?” (Jn 16:19). At the end of today’s gospel they exclaim, “Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this we believe that You came forth from God.” Even though they know Jesus knows all things—including what they will ask for—Jesus tells them to ask. He removes the excuse the flesh makes when it says, “God already knows what I need, so there’s no point in praying.” Of course, God knows what you will pray for. David says in Psalm 139[:2,4], “You understand my thought afar off. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.” And though He knows even our thoughts, He commands us pray nonetheless, because He wants to hear us and because prayer exercises our faith in God’s promise to hear and answer us.

Against any excuse to not pray that the flesh may find, James reminds us in today’s epistle, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” This applies to the entirety of God’s word. He tells us to keep all things He has commanded (Matt 28:20), so it applies to prayer, as well. Be a doer of the word. Be a pray-er. Ask God for what He has promised to give. If we hear Jesus’ promise, then go our way and only pray to Him in this place, we are like a like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. This is the very thing that we prayed for in the Collect of the Day. “O God, from Whom all good things do come, grant to us, Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be right and by Thy merciful guiding may perform the same.” He guides our thinking through His word so that we do as James tells us: bridling our tongues, visiting the helpless in their trouble, and keeping ourselves unspotted from world. While these things are pure and undefiled religion—the outward, visible acts of piety God’s words directs us towards, they only flow from the internal religion—the fullness of joy we have because we have a God and Father in heaven who loves us, who dwells in us by faith, and who inspires us by His word to think those things which are right and God-pleasing, so that we do them.

“Whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” This promise—and the joy that comes from knowing that God loves us because we love His only begotten Son—is more than enough to motivate us to pray each day in every temptation and trial, in every adversity and affliction. With this promise, in Jesus’ name and by His merits, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 16:5-15

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

On the night in which our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed He tells His disciples He is going away. Naturally, this news saddens the disciples, for they had spent the last three years of their lives travelling with Jesus, listening to Jesus, and learning from Jesus. Jesus answers their sorrow. He says, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” Jesus goes to His Father, and the apostles will go into all the world, to preach the gospel of Christ. For that they will need the Helper. The word Jesus uses is paraklētos. A paraclete is someone who is called to be on your side, to be your advocate, who comforts and guides you. The Helper whom Christ will send is not a created helper, but the Spirit of truth, God the Holy Spirit.

How will He help them? “He will guide them into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell them things to come.” God the Holy Spirit will inspire these men’s preaching by giving them Christ’s words to speak, so that they speak the very words of God to men. The Holy Spirit will glorify Christ in this way, by taking the things of Christ—which are the things of the Father—and giving them to the apostles, so that the apostles will always have the things of Christ, the words of Christ, the teaching of Christ, to preach to men. They are to have no doubt that what they are preaching is God’s Word. Because Christ sends them the Helper, the Spirit of truth to takes the things of Jesus and give it to them, they are to have no doubt that their preaching pleases God.

They’ll need that comfort because the work the Holy Spirit will do through them is the work of convicting, or rebuking, the world. When the Helper has come, Jesus says, “He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” With these words Jesus shows us that the world and all that is in it, has the wrong idea about sin, righteousness, and judgment. If the gospel of Christ is to take effect in people’s hearts, the Spirit of truth must first open their eyes so that they everything world and their own flesh teaches them about these three things is false.

What does it mean that He will convict the world of sin? Jesus says, “Of sin, because they do not believe in Me.” Typically, the world thinks of sin as only the outward act. The world disapproves of insurrection, murder, adultery, theft, and slander. It doesn’t acknowledge that the inward desire to rebel or speak ill of others is sin. The world is incapable of admitting that the inward lust to commit adultery or take what belongs to someone else, is sin and should be corrected. These are natural impulses, the world says, and if a person doesn’t act on them and fulfill them, they’re still good people. But the Helper—the Spirit of truth—will convict the world for this lie. The inner desire is sin, and it all comes from one source: unbelief. The world does not believe in Christ. That’s why the world can go about setting up sliding scales of sinfulness based on human convention. Sin is not defined by what God says, but by what man says. And as you well know, man can change his mind, so that if enough people agree that what was previously viewed as sinful is no longer sinful, then what they previously viewed as sin, they now come to celebrate. The Spirit of Truth rebukes the world’s lies and condemns it for the chief sin, the fountain of all actual sins: unbelief. Because the world refuses to believe in Christ and hear His word, the world cannot do anything but sin.

What does it mean that He will convict the world of righteousness? Jesus says, “Of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more.” This is a cryptic saying. But when we consider that “going to the Father” is Christ completing His work and ascending, it becomes a bit clearer. Christ, by His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death earned perfect righteousness, and then goes back to the Father. Christ’s work was to live the perfectly under God’s law so that He might redeem those who are under the law. He shows us what true righteousness is. It is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22.37 ,39). Since we cannot do this by our own natural powers, since they are tainted with sin, Christ does this for us, so that who put their trust in Him, God counts as righteous with the righteousness of Christ.

The world has an altogether different opinion about what righteousness is. The world has always thought of righteousness as doing righteous things. Until recently decades, the righteous things the world praised happened, for the most part, to coincide with God’s moral law: Be a good person and treat others with respect. But in recent years, the righteous deeds the world praises are entirely different. In fact, it’s not even deeds so much as it is having the right opinion or this or that social or political issue. People judge the righteousness of others based on whether the support abortion, illegal immigration, homosexuality, and transgenderism, endless wars, and the like. The world has its sinful, godless agenda, and those who speak well of that agenda—even if they don’t lift a finger to advance it—are praised as righteous, good, and God-pleasing. Self-righteousness—based on God’s law or on man’s opinions—is the righteous of the world that the Helper rebukes as false and a lie.

What does it mean that He will convict the world of judgment? “Of judgment,” Jesus says, “Because the ruler of this world is judged.” The ruler of this world is the devil. He rules, not by right but because he usurped God’s rule by taking humanity captive through sin. The ruler of this world pronounces judgment on the things of God—the things of Jesus—calling the things of Jesus sinful, hateful, and unloving, while calling his things—sin and self-righteousness—good, empowering, and loving. The world—with its ruler—makes the wrong judgment and can only make the wrong judgment because both are enmity with God. The Holy Spirit rebukes the devil and the world’s judgment as false and deceptive. The Spirit of truth shows the world that it is driven by the spirit of error, and for its unbelief, false righteousness, and satanic judgments, must be convicted.

The apostles would need the Helper, the Spirit of truth, to preach the very Word of God to the world, to write the New Testament scriptures by the Spirit’s inspiration, and to stand firm under the world’s hatred at being rebuked. He promised them, “If I depart, I will send Him to you.” He fulfilled His promise on Pentecost, ten days after He went to the Father.  The Holy Spirit worked in men’s hearts through the apostolic witness and He continues to work in your hearts, and the hearts of all believers, through the preaching they left behind in their written witness. The Holy Spirit still works to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and ungodly judgments because He can only comfort those who have been convicted. He can only reconcile those who repent at His rebuke.

How does He comfort? How does He reconcile? By taking of what is Jesus’s and announcing it to you: Jesus’ perfect righteousness, Jesus’ atoning death for the sins of the world, Jesus’ having gone to the Father to fill all things and rule all things for the benefit of His Church—those who believe in Him. We are in the world, no longer of the world, because we have been baptized and believe. But because the sinful flesh remains in us, we still, at times, believe the world’s lies and submit to its unbelief, self-righteousness, and false judgments. And when we do, the Holy Spirit convicts us of the unbelief, the self-righteousness, and the desire to agree with the world’s judgments. By this He shows us His love, as well as the love of the Father and the Son, for the Triune God does not want us to be swept away with unbelievers, but that He wants to convict us so that He might comfort us with the all the blessings Jesus has earned for us. And so that we remain in this comfort, and fight against the world and our flesh’s unbelief, false righteousness, and unjust judgments, Christ gives us the Helper to help us live in godliness. The Spirit—the paraclete—is sent to you for your help, for your comfort, and to guide you, not with world’s things, not even with His own, but with the things of Jesus. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Peter 2.11–20 and John 16.16–23a

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

Today’s gospel lesson—and the gospels for the rest of the Easter season—takes us back to the night in which Jesus was betrayed. Jesus taught His disciples many things on Maundy Thursday, especially about what His death, resurrection, ascension, and what life would look like afterward. Today hear Jesus teach them, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” The disciples don’t understand this and ask about it among themselves. What does He mean that He goes to the Father? But they seem especially hung up on the three words—which is only one word in Greek—“a little while.” John directs our focus to this words by the way he records the entire conversation. “A little while” is used seven times.

What does Jesus mean, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father?” The little while of which He speaks is His three days in tomb. This is the little while in which the disciples will not see Him. But after that little while they will see Him again because He will rise from the dead on the third day, as He had told them on several occasions during His ministry. He tells them, “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.” This is how it happened. Once Jesus is arrested later than night, the disciples fled from Him. Peter wept in repentance over the fact that, relying on his own strength, He publicly denied Christ three times. They all lamented the fact that their Lord was taken from them and crucified. While they were filled with sorrow the world rejoiced. Jesus said in John 7:7 that the world “hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.” The world—including the self-righteous Jews which plotted His execution—rejoiced because it had succeeded in silencing the One who exposed it’s evil and condemned it’s works, it’s ways, even showing that its righteousness is worthless in God’s sight.

But this is how Jesus goes to the Father. His body is laid in the tomb by Joseph and Nicodemus, but His spirit goes to God the Father in paradise, having completed the work the Father sent Him to do. He accomplished the atonement of mankind, earning the forgiveness of sin for all who believe in Him. He lived perfectly in God the Father’s sight so that He might give His perfect righteousness to everyone who puts their trust in by Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. His death is how He goes to the Father. But this is only to be for a little while. He comes back to the disciples by rising from the dead. He does this to conquer death so that He has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20), a sign and pledge that all who belong to Christ by faith will be raised on the Last Day. It’s His return to life—His resurrection—that puts an end to the disciples’ sorrow and turns it into joy. It isn’t only the joy of seeing their Lord again in the flesh. It’s the joy that although there is suffering and the cross to bear, these only last a little while, and once the little while is over, there is eternal joy that no one will take from them. It is similar to a woman in labor. She experiences the sorrow of delivery, but the moment she hears her baby crying, all the sorrow turns into an unfathomable joy.

Jesus says, “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” If a woman’s sorrow turns to joy—a joy which no one can take from her—how much more will the disciples’ joy be theirs in a way that no one will able to steal from them? The world, which rejoiced at Jesus’ suffering and death, will not be able to take it from them. That’s saying something, considering how much hatred the world had—and still has—for Christ. The world will hate these men as it hated—and still hates—Christ, for Christ chose them out of the world to be His apostles, to be His witnesses, to preach the gospel to all nations. The world will do everything in its power to silence them as it had Christ. But it doesn’t matter; “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” for those whom He has called out of this world (Phil. 1:21). Suffering and cross, affliction and death, will not take the joy of Christ from them; the joy that Christ has gone to the Father, having earned forgiveness, new life, and salvation for believers; the joy that Christ lives—never to die again—and reigns over all things for the good of those who believe in Him.

This joy is yours, too. You have not seen Christ in the flesh as His disciples did because He ascended to the right hand of God—God’s power—”that He might fill all things” as Paul writes in Ephesians 4:10. But you will see Him when He returns in glory. In spite of not having seen Jesus in the flesh, this joy is yours because you believe the apostles’ witness about Jesus. You have the joy of knowing that, for Christ’s sake, you have a God who is for you, not against you. You have the joy of knowing that, for Jesus’ sake, you have a God who will forgive your sins as often as you confess them to Him. You have the joy of knowing that you are temples of Holy Spirit so that you can fight against temptation and live as God’s children, following the example of our older brother in the flesh, our Lord Jesus. You have the joy of knowing that your loved ones who have died in the faith live with God even now, and will rise again with all believers on the Last Day. You have the joy of knowing that although the world hates you because you believe Christ and strive to live a godly life, Christ has overcome the world by dying to it and rising to new life, so that even if the world demands that you suffer for Christ’s sake, even that you die, it doesn’t matter. “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” for those whom He has called out of this world (Phil. 1:21). No matter what things you must suffer in this life for the sake of Christ and His word, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). This is our joy that no one can take from us.

This is why St. Peter writes to you as sojourners and pilgrims, people chosen out of this world. Because of this joy which no one can take from you, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Fight sin in your mortal body and take every thought captive to Christ. Behave yourself honorably among the gentiles—unbelievers— that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. This even means submitting ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. As it was then, so it is now. Unbelievers look for any reason to disbelieve the gospel and accuse Christianity of trying to subvert the State. In our day it seems like some of the governing authorities want Christians to rise up against them. Peter reminds us that Christians submit to governing authorities, the only exception being in they command us to sin. Peter reminds us that we are sojourners and pilgrims here. We are not interested in setting up the kingdom of God on earth, though many Christians in our day imagine that that is the answer to the societal rot they see all around them. The joy of the gospel fills our hearts so that we submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, because the Lord is the one who has put the governing authorities over us. The joy of the gospel doesn’t look for God to establish His kingdom here on earth. It looks for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). And if, in this little while in which we live, must suffer, let us suffer wrongfully, rather deservedly, on account of conscience toward God, not on account of sin.

But whatever crosses and suffering the Lord lays upon us, we can endure them with the joy of the gospel, the joy that no one can take from us. We know, first, that our trials last but a little while. God will turn our sorrow into joy. He does this sometimes in this life and when He does, we give Him thanks. But as Christians, we know that no matter what He allows to happen to us, no matter what we must endure as sojourners and pilgrims on earth, no matter how He calls upon us to suffer for His sake, it will be followed by the everlasting joy of going to Father in everlasting blessedness. This is the joy of the gospel which we possess now, by faith, and will enjoy in eternity by sight. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Peter 2.21-25 & John 10.11-16

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

“I am the good shepherd.” With these words, Jesus separates Himself from all the wicked, lazy hirelings who had assumed they were good shepherds. Jesus speaks these words to a group of Pharisees, men who thought of themselves as shepherds of Israel in the same vein as Moses and Aaron, David, and the prophets. They were not the shepherd of God’s flock, though. They were hirelings, wageworkers who didn’t care for the sheep because the sheep weren’t theirs. They were no better than the false prophets and elders of Israel who shepherded Israel before the exile, whom the Lord condemned through the prophet Ezekiel. Like those Old Testament hirelings, they eat the fat of the sheep and clothe themselves with the wool. The weak they did not strengthen with the gospel. They did not heal those who were sick with sin but taught them to rely on their own works. They did not bind up the broken with God’s promise of mercy. They didn’t bring back those the world had driven away, nor did they seek the lost sheep who had strayed from the flock by sinning. Instead, these men ruled over the flock of Israel with force and cruelty, teaching the commandments of men as if they were the doctrine of God, enriching themselves and their egos at the expense of people of God’s pasture and the sheep of His hand.

“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus tells them. What makes Him the good shepherd? “The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” The Pharisees—who sat in Moses’ seat as the self-appointed teachers of Israel—did not give their lives for the sheep. Theirs wasn’t a ministry of service to the sheep. They didn’t defend the flock from the wolf, which signifies every spiritual danger to God’s flock: sin, spiritual death, and the devil. These men were unwilling to put themselves between the flock and the wolf to save the sheep. The hireling, Jesus says, “who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.” When the wolf came they fled, so that sin, spiritual death, and the devil were allowed to devour the Lord’s lambs and maim the members of His kingdom. These men fled because strengthening the weak with God’s promises, healing the sick with the promise of God’s mercy, binding up the broken, and going after the scattered and lost was just too much work. They styled themselves shepherds of Israel, but they only deserved the name “hireling.”

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Jesus does not come as a hireling. He is the good shepherd. He sees the wolf coming—sin, death, the power of the devil—and doesn’t run. He puts Himself between the wolf and His flock. This is what David had done as a shepherd. When he stepped forward to fight the giant Goliath, he told king Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it” (1 Sam. 17:34-35). Jesus is the Son of David, the new David, whom God promised shall feed Israel and be their shepherd (Ezek. 34:23. Like His ancestor David, Jesus stepped forward, placing Himself between the wolf and sheep. But unlike His ancestor David, Jesus allows Himself to be devoured by the wolf. He was reviled by sinful men in order to pay for our reviling of God and our neighbor. He was insulted to atone for every sin with which we have insulted God’s holiness. He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pt. 2:24), allowing the wolf to destroy Him, so that He might rescue all who believe in Him from the jaws of that wolf. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. But Jesus is no hireling. He is the good shepherd. He knows His sheep and is known by His sheep, and they know Him as the Son of God, whom the Father knows from eternity and who knows the Father from eternity, because He is of substance with the Father. This one, the Son of God Himself, who lays His life down for the sheep.

Jesus not only lays His life down for the sheep. As the good shepherd, He gathers His sheep—believers—into His flock—the Holy Christian Church. He says, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” Who are these other sheep? The gentiles. Jesus, as the good shepherd, lays His life down to atone for our sins and takes back up His life on the third day so that He might justify believers and bring them into His fold. The weak of faith He strengthens with His Holy Spirit. Those sick with sin He heals with forgiveness. The brokenhearted He binds up with His peace. Those who are driven away by falsehood He brings back with His truth. Those who have been lost because of their sins, He seeks with repentance and the promise of mercy. He does this first with His disciples after His resurrection. Then He sends them into all the world as His undershepherds. The apostles and the minsters that follow after them do this work of shepherding, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to them, but being examples to the flock (1 Pt. 5:2-3). Every minister whom Christ calls—unless He be a hireling in His heart—shepherds Christ’s flock, not His own, and follows Christ’s example of laying down His life for the sheep, giving of Himself so that the Lord’s lambs might be fed and protected.

And as ministers, as Christ’s undershepherds, are to follow in the steps of the good shepherd, all of us, as His lambs of His flock, are to follow the example He left us. Peter says, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.” We often think of following in Jesus’ footsteps as living as Jesus lived. But Peter specifically encourages us to follow in Jesus steps by suffering as He suffered. Everyone wants to avoid suffering at all costs, but those who following a suffering Savior know to say with St. Paul in Acts 14:22, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.” While we aren’t to go looking for crosses to bear and impose suffering upon ourselves, when God lays the cross on us, when He sends afflictions, we aren’t to try to throw off the cross or wiggle free from the affliction He sends. We are to endure it patiently, following the pattern Christ established:  ‘Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness — by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

When God lays the cross upon us—which is suffering specifically for the sake of Christ and His word—we do not bear it alone. When God afflicts us in our body, mind, or life, or when He afflicts us in the body and mind of a loved one, we do not bear the affliction alone, for we have, by faith Christ’s suffering and death, returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. As the shepherd and overseer of our souls, our Lord Jesus Christ leads us through every cross and each affliction. Sometimes He lifts the cross from our shoulders. Sometimes He removes the affliction from us or our loved one. But that is not how He leads us as our good shepherd. In the midst of every suffering, He makes us to lie down in the green pastures of His word and leads us besides the still waters of all His promises, so that by His gospel promises He may restore our souls. He leads us in the paths of righteousness, for we have died to sins and unrighteousness. He comforts us in the valley of the shadow of death by the fact that He has walked this valley before—and lives! He protects us from the wolves which seek to devour us—our sin, the world, and the devil—and even prepares a table in the presence of our enemies, with a cup of blessing which overflows with consolation. He is not a hireling. He’s in it for the long haul because He cares for the sheep. He knows His sheep and His sheep know Him because He has laid down His life for the sheep, and taken it up again, so that they might have live eternally in His fold. Amen.  

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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John 20.19-31

Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

The women did their job. They told the disciples that Jesus was not in the tomb, that He had risen. Peter and John raced there to find it just as the women had told them. John stoops down to look inside the tomb. Peter goes inside sees the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself (John 20:6-7), left as a sign that this was not theft or grave robbery. They leave the tomb and later that evening they are with the other disciples—except Thomas. John tells the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews. The Jews knew that Jesus’ body wasn’t in the tomb. Their guards, who had seen the angel roll the stone away and became like dead mean at the sight, related all this to the Sanhedrin, who in turn, paid them handsomely to dishonor themselves and tell people Jesus’ disciples came at night, while they were sleeping, and stole Jesus’ body. Who knew what the Jews would do next to cover the lie. Would they come after Jesus’ disciples next? The disciples, fearing the Jews and what they could do to them, gather together and shut the doors.

Shut doors may deter the Jews. They won’t deter Jesus. Passing through a door is no issue for Him now that He has laid aside the form of a servant—His humility—and already that same day passed through the stone which shut Him in the tomb. He stands in the midst of the disciples, doors still shut, using His divine power freely—yet still for the purpose of encouraging His disciples. He stands in the midst of the ten disciples—one whom publicly denied even knowing Him three times—all of them having deserted Him in the Garden of Gethsemane when they saw He wasn’t going to defend Himself. We aren’t told why Thomas isn’t with them. Judas isn’t there because he’s dead, having hanged himself in despair, unwilling to believe God could forgive Him for betraying Christ. This band of men are roughed up by their sins, by their doubts, and by their fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Peace was what they needed. Peace is what Jesus gave them. Though all of them had deserted Jesus in the Garden, He speaks peace to them, not hold their weakness against them, but forgiving their cowardice and lack of faith. Though Peter had publicly denied Him three times, He announces peace to Peter, for having wept bitterly in repentance for His public denial, Jesus wants to him to understand that Jesus lives to forgive sins and justify believers—even him. Though they fear what the Jews might do to them, He speaks peace to them, for by living Jesus proves the Jews’ story to be a lie, so that whatever the Jews rage and plot against them, it’s all in vain. Even if the Jews—or anyone else for that matter—do manage to harm them, even kill them—they have peace that comes from knowing that if Jesus lives, they too, will live with Jesus. Jesus lives to forgive sins, beginning with His disciples. Christ—the Son of the living God—has no wrath against them, but forgives them freely and willingly, for He stands in their midst and tells them, “Peace be with you.” He shows them His hands and His side as proof that it is Him and not some phantasm or apparition, but more so, His wounds are the reason He can speak peace to them. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:5). Seeing His hands and feet, that it is really Him, and that He is really alive, they rejoice.

But Jesus gives them more. He tells them again, “Peace to you,” but now adds, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send 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 retain the sins of any, they are retained.” With these words Jesus institutes the Holy Ministry—an office which has the duties of forgiving the sins. What Jesus gave to the penitent, fearful disciples, He wants given to all people, because He died for the sins of all mankind. He earned perfect forgiveness by His sufferings and death and the cross and wants all people to enjoy the righteousness, innocence and blessedness He eared for them. So He institutes an office whose duty is it to give out this gift.

But the apostles aren’t to give the gift earned to just anyone. They are to forgive the penitent. The Lord said in Isaiah 66:2, “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.” He says in Psalm 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.” In Luke 24:27, at another of His appearances to the disciples between His resurrection and ascension, He will tell them, “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Just as Christ Himself had preached, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15), so His apostles and those who follow them in this holy office, are to preach repentance of sin and then pronounce forgiveness on the penitent. When they speak, it will be Christ who is speaking through them, for He had promised them in Luke 10:16, “He who hears you hears Me.” And what do they hear? Forgiveness of every sin and peace with God.

But the office which He gives the apostles also includes the duty of retaining sins of those who do not repent, or whose repentance is hypocritical. Those who aren’t sorry for their sin, those who intend to continue in their sin, those who want to coddle their sin and enjoy both it and the benefits of Christ are to be told, “Your sins are not forgiven, but the wrath of God remains on you until you repent and desire to amend your sinful life. Here there can be no peace spoken because there is still hostility and enmity towards God’s will. Jesus only speaks to peace to those who are sorry they have disrupted that peace, admit it, and want to do better. Even the retaining of sins serves the purpose of showing people the severity of their sins and the need for repentance, so that they might understand this and repent.  It is as the Lord tells the exiles in Babylon through the prophet Ezekiel, “Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. Therefore turn and live!” (Ezek 18:31-32).

This office, which forgives and retains sins, continues on in the church and will continue until Christ returns. For having ascended, He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11) to do the work of the ministry. He gives some to His church as ministers so that all people mighty hear the living voice of the gospel in their ears. Jesus wants to unburden those who are burdened with the guilt of their sin, frustrated at their human weakness, and want to be free of sin and its guilt. Jesus wants the forgiveness of sins—which He earned by His sufferings and death on the cross—to be give to all people. But it is only given to those who hear His gospel, repent of their sins, and believe His promise to forgive the sins of all who flee to Him for mercy and take refuge in His holy wounds. Jesus wants you to hear the living voice of the gospel, so He gives His word of gospel to living men to speak it, so that you do not doubt that by those words, although spoken by a mere man, your sins are forgiven by Christ who sent that man.

But we haven’t talked about Thomas yet. Thomas doesn’t hear this but receives this same office the next week. Jesus overcomes His unbelief by appearing to the disciples once again and showing Thomas His hands and feet, so that He stop unbelieving and believe He is risen instead. Even this is for the encouragement of our faith. Thomas—and all the disciples—needed to see Jesus in order to believe His resurrection. But Jesus pronounces those who believe without seeing to be blessed. Blessed are those who will hear these men’s testimony, their living voice, and the living voice of those whom God gives to the church after them. Blessed are you when you hear and believe that Christ is risen from the dead. Blessed are you when you hear and believe that your sins are forgiven before God in heaven, for the two words are related. Jesus lives, and He lives to reign, and justify believers. Blessed are you, for Christ is alive evermore to speak the peace of forgiveness to you through His ministry. Amen.  

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Corinthians 5.6-8 & Mark 16.1-8

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

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to Jesus’ tomb early on the day after the Sabbath—spices in hand—because they have work to do. On Friday afternoon after Jesus’ crucifixion, Joseph and Nicodemus had bound Jesus’ body in strips of linen with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, as was the custom of the Jews. These women—women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee (Mark 15:41)—want to anoint Jesus’ body with spices as well, in one final act of devotion and service to their Lord. Because preparing a body for burial is work, they could not have done it on the Sabbath, Friday evening through sundown on Saturday, and it couldn’t be done after Sunday, So, on the first day after the Sabbath, Sunday morning, they go to the tomb to get to work.

When they arrive, they find things different than the way they left them on Friday afternoon. When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away — for it was very large. The enter the tomb and see a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Of course they were alarmed. People don’t just sit in tombs, especially tombs that should have a corpse laying in it. The young man clothed in a long white robe isn’t alarmed by the situation, however, or by seeing the women enter the tomb. He speaks to them as if He had been expecting them. “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.” These women see with their own eyes that Jesus is not there. Their ears hear the angel’s words, “He is risen.” In seeing where Christ should have laid, and hearing the angel’s words, the risen Lord bestows upon these women the honor of being the first witnesses of His resurrection from the dead. The angel goes on, “But go, tell His disciples — and Peter — that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.”

The women went to the tomb originally because there was work to be done. There is work, but not the work they imagined. The odor of interment isn’t there. There is no person to perfume, no corpse to cover over in spices. Jesus lives! David prophesied of Him in the forty-fifth psalm, “All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, Out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.” Solomon’s bride—the church—said of Him, “His cheeks are like a bed of spices, Banks of scented herbs. His lips are lilies, Dripping liquid myrrh” (Song 5:13). There is no body to prepare for burial because Jesus is risen from the dead. He is alive, never to die again. Christ has no need of their spices, for He smells like life because He is the resurrection and the life.

The spices in their hands are now worthless, at least for the task they originally planned. Now they have a different task. Instead of preparing a dead body for burial in the grave, they will proclaim that the one who was dead now lives! Instead of anointing Jesus’ body with aromatic spices, their task is to diffuse the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples. To Peter—who had wept bitterly over his public denial of Christ—these women were to be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16), for they had the privilege of telling Peter that His Lord was alive to raise Peter to new life through the forgiveness of his sins. The women flee the tomb, trembling and astonished, saying nothing to anyone on their way to the disciples. For Christ is risen and there is work to be done. The sweet-smelling fragrance of His life and victory over death must be diffused throughout the world beginning with the downcast disciples and penitent Peter.

That diffusion—the work the angel gave the women to do—continues to this very day. The women’s testimony which they received from the angel, fills your ears once again. Christ sent His apostles into the world to teach the gospel that “Christ has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” as Paul calls it in Ephesians 5:2. He offered Himself upon the altar of the cross as the once-for-all sacrifice for all mankind, making propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 Jn 2:2), so that “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life,” the life to which Jesus was raised on the third day, while “He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn 3:36).

And as this gospel is preached—as the work of the ministry continues—the fragrance of life continues to waft through this sinful world, some smelling it for what it is, others turning up their noses at it. St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16). Paul’s ministry gives off an aroma, figuratively speaking. To those who believe the gospel, his ministry is aroma of life because the gospel gives life to those dead in trespasses and sins. His ministry is the aroma of death, however, to those who do not believe, because through it Christ wants to put our sinful natures to death through repentance so that He might raise us to new life—His life—which is a life dead to sin and world’s ways of thinking, but alive to God and His will.

It isn’t just faithful ministry that is the fragrance of Christ. It is believers. Having Christ’s righteousness and innocence imputed to them by faith, believers smell like Christ to God the Father. We smell like life because Christ—the risen One—dwells in us by faith. Not only do we smell like Christ to God the Father, so do our good works. Works of love done for God and neighbor are a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God (Phil 4:18). Our works please Him because they are the fruits of our faith in Christ which believes His gospel and trusts that for His sake we have a merciful God. Pursuing good works, being zealous for them, pleases God and also helps tamp down the Old Adam—our sinful nature with its lusts—each day. The Corinthians had not done this. In fact, they celebrated sin in their midst. They gloried in one parishioner’s public sexual immorality, which is why the epistle for Easter Day opens with the word, “Your glorying is not good.” Sin is like yeast. It never stops at its starting point. This immorality would grow in the man, but it would also spread throughout the congregation, with others following his example, as his sin is accepted and even praised, as we sadly see happen in so many churches in our day. The yeast of malice and wickedness, if allowed to spread, becomes stale and sours the lump, killing the life Christ gives by pushing Christ from the heart.

Paul tells the Corinthians in today’s epistle, “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” Don’t let sin reign in you and among you. Sin brings spiritual death and its decay. Purge it, remove it from among you as the Jews were to remove leaven during the Feast of Unleavened Bread which followed Passover. “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” And if our Passover lamb has been sacrificed—and if we enjoy the benefits of His sacrifice like the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life, and His living in our hearts by faith—then purge the leaven of sin from you, individually and corporately. Keep the feast—Christ’s Passover—not with the old leaven of Judaism, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Purge out the old leaven of sin as often as you discover any of it in your heart. Do not give it opportunity to spread into your thoughts, words, and actions. Purge it lest it sour your faith into bitterness and spoil the aroma of life that is yours by faith in Christ.

To women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, He gave the work—and honor—of being the first witnesses of His resurrection, and they faithfully diffused the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection to the disciples and, through the apostles’ writing, all the world. To you, He gives the work of purging the old leaven of sin from the home of your heart, since that is where Christ dwells by faith. This is your work of loving devotion to your Lord, who gives His innocence, His righteousness, His blessedness, and His sweet-smelling aroma before God the Father, so that you may be the aroma of life leading to life (2 Cor. 2:16). Smelling like Christ and His life by faith in the gospel, live in such a way that you confess with your lips and your deeds that Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for our sins, and that He lives to reign, to justify and sanctify all who believe in Him. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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1 Corinthians 11.23-32 & John 13.1-15

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

On the Thursday of Holy Week, Christ leaves His disciples with a commandment. Jesus tells them in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” This is more than likely the reason the day has been known as “Maundy Thursday,” maundy being a corruption of the Latin word “mandati,” which means commandment. Jesus gives them this commandment, but before He does, He gives them an example of how He loves them, so that they might love one another in the same way. He rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. To wash the dust and grime from others’ feet is the stuff of servants and slaves. But that is the nature of love. Love is service which puts the needs of the other ahead of one’s own. We tend to make love into all sorts of things it isn’t just so we can avoid what it actually is: willing, self-sacrificial giving to another. Jesus told these same men in Matthew 20:28, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” By washing and wiping the disciples’ feet, Jesus proves He means it.

When He gets to Peter, Peter will have none of it: “Lord, are Your washing my feet?” When Jesus tells him that He’s teaching them something, Peter exclaims, “You shall never wash my feet!” Look how Peter loves and honors Christ! Christ is his teacher and Lord. He shouldn’t be doing the work of a servant. He should be receiving honor and service. Peter loves Jesus, but still in such a way that he can’t allow Jesus to be what He has come to be. He did the same thing when Jesus said Matthew 16[:21] when Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Peter takes Christ aside and rebukes Him, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” (Mt. 16:22). Peter thinks the world of Jesus. He loves and honors Jesus as the Son of the living God, which is why he cannot allow Him to talk like this. Suffering, being killed—even if it is followed by rising from the dead—does not compute with what Peter imagines love, glory, and honor to be. Neither does washing the road off of the feet of twelve men who will one day sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). But as Peter, in Matthew 16, was unwittingly in league with Satan, not being mindful of the things of God, but the things of men (Mt. 16:23), so on this evening when the same sufferings Jesus had prophesied would begin, Peter is not mindful of the things of God. He is mindful only of the things of men. He thinks the world of Jesus. But he thinks Jesus and His kingdom should be of the world.

Jesus prevails upon him in words reminiscent of baptism, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” As soon as Peter understands that whatever this is that Jesus is doing, it connects one to Jesus, He’s all in. “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” he exclaims. But Peter is already clean, having been baptized and living daily in repentance and faith. This is why Judas isn’t clean, for although he, too, would have been baptized, he had exchanged living in repentance and faith for living in willful sin, agreeing to, and now looking for, opportunity to betray Jesus. Though even with these words, “You are not all clean,” Jesus works to recall Judas to repentance.

Then, when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He teaches the meaning of this act of loving service. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” Christ, their teacher and Lord, wants them to follow His example. This is how they are to love one another as Christ has loved them. They are to willfully serve one another. They are to sacrifice themselves for the good of their neighbor. They are to bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). The washing of their feet is but one example of how He loved His own who were in the world and loved them to the end. After they leave this place and go to the Gethsemane Garden, Jesus would begin His passion and serve them—and all mankind—in a far greater way.

He will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify Him (Mt. 20:18-19). He will lay aside the garment of His flesh in death and pour out His divine blood to make perfect payment the sins of the world. This is how He chiefly serves mankind, by giving His life as a ransom for many. He dies for all—sheds His precious, innocent blood for all people—so that He might cleanse those who believe in His promise and place their trust in His all-sufficient sacrifice for their sins.

As a memorial of this passion, He gives His very body—the body of the eternal Son of God—which will be beaten, scourged, crucified, and pierced, to you. He gives you His very blood—the blood of the eternal Son of God—which will be shed by whips and nails, by spear and thorns, to you. “On the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the New Testament in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’” The foot washing was an example of the commandment, “Love one another; as I have loved you (Jn 13:34). We wash one another’s feet daily without ever touching their feet when we forgive their sins against us, when we help them in their need, when we bear their burdens. When Christ says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” He gives us the second commandment of Maundy Thursday. There is latitude in how we love our neighbors as Christ has loves us. But in the Sacrament, He commands us to it as He instituted it.

And what does He institute? Not symbols of His body and blood. Not tokens of His absent body and blood which cause our souls to ascend into heaven where His body is locked away. He gives bread which is His body and blood which is His blood. He can make His body and blood present in, with, and under bread and wine because His body is the body united with the eternal Son of God, and as God He has more ways to be present than we do. He gives us His very body and His very blood to eat and drink, in remembrance of Him. This isn’t remembering like having a moment of silence or a memorial stone that only reminds us that a thing once happened some time ago. To do this in remembrance of Christ is “to remember the benefits of Christ and receive them by faith, so as to be quickened by them” (Ap XXIV.72). As we eat and drink this bread which is Christ’s body and drink this wine which is Christ’s true blood, we remember His suffering and death and we receive the benefits He earned for us in His passion: forgiveness of every sin, new life by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal salvation.

But there is danger involved. There always is when dealing with the things of God. This is why Paul bids us examine ourselves. That cannot take place first without being taught to examine oneself, which is why we permit only those who have been “examined in Christian doctrine, in the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments” (Ap XV.40). If we judge ourselves, acknowledging our sin, and the desire to be rid of it, both in our conscience and our life so that we want to amend our sinful life, then we partake worthily and receive the benefits Christ has promised to give along with His body and blood. To commune unworthily is to commune without knowledge of Christ’s presence in the Sacrament, without acknowledging one’s sins, and without any intention to amend one’s sinful life. To partake unworthily is to still receive Christ’s very body and blood, but do so to one’s judgment, because they make a mockery of Christ’s death for the forgiveness and abolition of their sin.

And so, we have two commandments that make give this Thursday the name by which we know it, and both commandments flow from the gospel. Our love for our neighbor is to be a memorial and done in remembrance of and thanksgiving for Christ’s selfless, sacrificial love for us on the cross. Our celebration of His sacrament is a memorial and remembrance of that same passion and death, but a remembrance which receives the benefits He earned there for us. In this we see the words of the apostle are quite true: “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). They are a joy. Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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Philippians 2.5-11 and Matthew 21:1-9

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

On Palm Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem riding a colt. The prophet Zechariah had foretold that Zion’s king would enter Jerusalem this way. “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” John records that when the people see Jesus coming to Jerusalem in this way, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!” (Jn 12:13). Although He did not arrive in Jerusalem like a king, they received Him with palm branches waving and garments paving a royal road for Him, because the prophet had foretold that the king would arrive this way. Jesus’ lowliness did not offend them. That was part of the prophecy. The one riding the beast of burden into Jerusalem would be the King of Israel, the Son of David, the One who comes in the name of the Lord, so they cry out “Hosanna”, “Save us!”

This lowliness and humility were not only how Jesus entered Jerusalem. It characterized His entire life. He was mother was of lowly state (Lk 1:48). His first bed was a manger. When he was barely a month old his parents took him to Egypt because Herod sought to kill him. During the days of His ministry He told a would-be disciple, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Mt 8:20), and describes Himself in Matthew 11[:29] as gentle and lowly in heart. This lowliness would mark the days of this week—Holy Week. On Thursday evening, after celebrating the Passover with His disciples, He will be betrayed by one of His disciples. Judas will arrive in Gethsemane with a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons (Jn 18:3). Jesus will be arrested, deserted by His disciples, and convicted as a blasphemer and condemned as a criminal. He will be scourged, mocked, emaciated, and then crucified. Lowliness and humility characterized His life. They characterized His innocent, bitter sufferings and death.

St. Paul describes the humility and lowliness of Jesus in today’s epistle. Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” What does this mean? To be in the form of God is to possess divine power, divine majesty, and divine glory. Christ possessed all these from eternity, but when He became man, He still possess them all and shared them with His human nature which received from the Virgin Mary, so that Paul can say in Colossians 2:9, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” This is why he not consider it robbery to be equal with God. He is equal with God the Father. He is in the form of God, possessing divine power, majesty, and glory.

But Christ Jesus made Himself of no reputation—literally, He emptied Himself. He doesn’t lay aside His divine power, majesty, and glory, so that they’re detached from Him, placed in storage or on reserve somewhere else. He refuses to use His divine power, majesty, and glory. He shows glimpses of it at times in miracles, but even those are for the sake of serving others in their weaknesses and infirmities. He empties Himself by taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. The form of a bondservant—or slave—is humility, lowliness, and obedience. This is how He empties Himself. He comes in the likeness of men. He assumes human flesh so that He can also assume human weakness and frailty, because in all things He had to be made like His brethren (Heb. 2:17), so that He might be in all points tempted as we are (Heb. 4:15). He is humbled “as if he were a sinner.” He empties Himself by assuming the place of sinners. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ not only suffered under the curse of the law, He became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He emptied Himself of His divine prerogative, clothes Himself with lowliness and humility so that He might be obedient to God the Father throughout His entire earthly life, to the point of death, even the death of the cross—the death reserved for criminals and slaves, the most humbling death that sinful man can concoct for another. The emptying is His humble obedience.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Paul sets forth Christ’s self-emptying humility as an example for us to follow. Christ Jesus set aside His prerogative as God to serve others. Christ Jesus refused to demand what He was rightly owed as God so that He might do what was in the best interest of our sinful race. Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matt 20:28). Christ endured everything—the physical pain, the spiritual torment, the wrath of God against sin—in obedience to God the Father and love for those He came to serve. This is the mind which Paul exhorts us to have. He wants us to lay aside whatever prerogatives we possess to serve others. He wants us to refuse to invoke whatever rights we have in order to do what is the best interest of our neighbors. Our attitude should not be one of looking to be served by others, but to serve others. Paul explains what this looks like in the verses immediately before today’s epistle. “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).

Christ gives the example. The apostle directs us to follow it. We pray to do just that in the Collect, “Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hast sent Thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon Him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross that all mankind should follow the example of His great humility, mercifully grant that we may both follow the example of His patience and also be made partakers of His Resurrection.” God the Father’s will is that we follow Christ’s example, and we pray for His mercy that He would grant that to us, so that we may follow Christ’s example more and more each day in our friendships, marriages, jobs, and all our vocations, being patient and loving with others, in all lowliness and gentleness, looking out for the interests of others in everything we do.

But no one is saved is following this example. True humility, true self-emptying, and true obedience only flow from the heart which receives what Christ earned for all by His humility, self-emptying, and obedience has won. Christ was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, to pay for our sins, all of which are disobedience and transgressions of God’s will. His obedience makes perfect payment for our disobedience, so that all who believe in Him have complete forgiveness. Christ endured the wrath of God against sin and sinners on the cross, crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Ps. 22:1), so that those who take refuge in Him are no longer under God’s wrath but possess the blessings of a good conscience, peace, and the promise of everlasting life. Only by humbly confessing our sins and disobedience to God, acknowledging that our sins deserve His wrath, and asking forgiveness for the sake of Jesus’ innocent, bitter sufferings and death, and trusting the promise of the gospel are our hearts made new, changed, and recreated so that we have the mind of Christ in us. We are not saved by imitating Christ’s example. We are saved by placing our trust in his death on the cross for our sins, and our following His example is a fruit of our faith in Christ.

One more thing. There is a “Therefore.” Because Jesus was obedient to the point of the death of the cross, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Following Christ’s example of humility, He will, one day, call us to follow Him in His exaltation. Christ Jesus laid aside the form of a servant at His resurrection, fully manifesting His divine glory by ascending to the right hand of the Father, where now all things are present to Him and subject to Him. As Christ humbled Himself and God the Father glorified Him, so too God will exalt those who trust in His Son and follow His example of humility, obedience, and self-emptying for others. He may do this in this life to some extent, but He will most certainly exalt His faithful people in the life of the world to come. With this in mind, do not seek worldly glory and earthly exaltation, but seek to glorify and confess Christ in all we do, trusting that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12). Amen.

May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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