Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kerrville Texas

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

“Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.” Who are these folks and why are they flocking to hear Jesus? Luke calls them tax collectors. These are men who on the Roman payroll and their job it to collect duty, tribute, and taxes from the people of Israel. Generally, these men were not content with their wages so they abused their office and collected more than necessary, so that what was Rome’s went to Rome and anything over that went into their own pockets. They were a greedy lot, driven by the love of money and that love of money led them to abuse their position and demand more tax than was actually necessary. No one liked the tax collectors. In Matthew 18:17 Jesus says that those who refuse to repent of their sin, after several admonitions, “let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector,” meaning, don’t have anything to do with them. Luke also calls them “sinners.” These aren’t people who sin out of weakness though. These are the people who willfully sin, who choose to sin, and who make a lifestyle of sin. These are the folks who flock to Jesus to hear Him.

So why did they draw near to Him to hear Him. What was Jesus saying that pricked their ears and drew them in so that they drank deeply from His instruction? It wasn’t a message of tolerance. Tax collectors and sinners were masters as tolerating sin already. Jesus’ words were not: “God doesn’t care about your many sins and your wicked lifestyles. He loves you and accepts you just the way you are.” That is what these people already believed in their hearts. For a person to continue to willfully sin they have to believe that God will not punish their sins and those sins aren’t that bad anyway. Jesus clearly was not tolerating their wickedness. What then? Was Jesus preaching self-improvement? A message of soft-law that says: “Yes, you’re rough around the edges, but with a little work you can be better. God will be pleased if you just try a bit more to be better people.” But there was no need for tax collectors and sinners to hear that from Jesus. The ones that had wanted to improve would have already thought such thoughts about God and themselves. There’s no need to flock to a teacher to hear that sort of thing. That’s what their sinful nature was already telling them. Neither toleration nor self-betterment actually deal with sin. Toleration and self-betterment are only cosmetic changes to the sinner. So what was it that Jesus was teaching that sucked these tax collectors and sinners in and held them?

Repentance. In Matthew 9:11 a Pharisee said to one of Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” “Why does He socialize with the dregs of society? He’s not much of a teacher, much less a Messiah, if He doesn’t understand exactly who these people are.” When Jesus hears that He replies: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:12-13). It seems odd that these tax collectors and sinners were gathering around in droves to hear Jesus speak about repentance. The ideas of toleration and self-improvement saturate our societal thinking to the point that even the word “repentance” sounds high-handed and harsh. Yet that is precisely what Jesus was speaking about. And that was precisely what these tax collectors and sinners had gathered around Jesus to hear. Repentance is not the sole-property of the fire-and-brimstone preachers who demand a change in lifestyle or else the sinner will burn in Hell. That’s not what repentance is. Repentance is a sorrow over sin and the desire to be rid of it. To repent of sin means to lament your sin and confess that what you have done is wrong deserves death and Hell, and that the promised condemnation is just and true. Jesus was very much condemning these tax collectors and sinners for their willful, open sins, as well as the sins in their hearts, those hidden from everyone except God and themselves.

The reason the tax collectors and sinners drew near to hear Him was because Jesus dealt with their sin head on, called it what it was, and then offered a solution far better than the cosmetic remedies of tolerance or self-betterment. He offered them the Gospel. To repent is not only to turn from your sins. You have to turn toward something else. The Gospel is the ‘something else’ to which they were to turn. He says to them, “You, dear tax collectors, are sheep who have strayed from God’s fold by your sins of thought, word, and deed. You cannot find your way back to the sheepfold but continue to wander further into the darkness of your sins. You, dear sinners, are a coin that has been lost and is unable to do anything to let yourself be found. But in spite of your straying you are still a sheep. In spite of your lostness you are still a valuable treasure to Me. Since you cannot find yourself back into the fold, since you cannot creep out of the darkness and back into the treasure box, I will seek you.“I am the good shepherd” (John 10:14). I am the one who seeks you out to find you, to put you on my shoulders and carry you back to Father’s sheepfold. I am the one who lights the lamp and sweeps the house and searches carefully for you. Your sins are mostly certain terrible, heinous, and damning. All of them. But I have come to make atonement for your sins because “The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Jesus offers Himself upon the cross in place of every sinner and every sin. He dies the sinner’s death. He suffers the sinner’s condemnation. He “was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25), that is, He died for our many sins and was raised to life so that He might justify all who believe in Him and trust His promise of forgiveness.

The message of Jesus that drew these tax collectors and sinners in was the message that Jesus preached at all times, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Sorrow over your sins, lament them for the Psalmist says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). The Lord had said through His prophet, “For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says the LORD. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). To those broken by the knowledge of their sin, to those who feel the guilt of their transgressions against God and their neighbor, to those who tremble at God’s commandments and acknowledge that they have sinned grievously, Jesus offers them something the world cannot give: the forgiveness of every sin. The prophet Isaiah rejoiced in the promise of forgiveness and says “You have cast all my sins behind Your back” (Isaiah 38:17). The prophet Micah wrote: “He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). This is the gospel that Jesus speaks to tax collectors and all sinners who repent of their sins and look to God for mercy because mercy is precisely what God promises.

Jesus ends both of these parables in today’s Gospel lesson with similar words. In both cases the Lord rejoices over one sinner who repents and believes the Gospel. Not only does Christ rejoice in their salvation but “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). The Lord rejoices, and not only the Lord, but all the heavenly hosts rejoice with Him because this is His good and gracious will: that all men be save and come to the knowledge of the truth of repentance and forgiveness. But not all will do this. Luke 7:30 says that “the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves.” In today’s lesson they grumble against Jesus for instructing tax collectors and sinners in repentance and faith. Their example shows us that there are many who reject the Gospel because they think they don’t need the gospel. The Pharisees thought they were righteous in and of themselves so they didn’t need Christ’s righteousness that He won and then offered to all who believe the Gospel. The Scribes and doctors of the Law thought they were spiritually healthy so they paid no attention to the medicine the great physical of souls freely offered. In this they rejected God’s will for themselves and judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life. So it is in our day as well, that many reject repentance and faith because they love their sin and think they are they are righteous. Still others imagine that God tolerates their sinful behavior and winks at it, while others vainly think they can please God with their own paltry works. Jesus condemns all of these thoughts as sinful in Matthew 21:31 when He says: “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.”

Jesus receives penitent sinners who acknowledge their sin and grieve their sinfulness. He forgives the sins of all who come to Him with penitent hearts, who wish to be rid of their sin. And He deals with it, not by tolerating it, not by offering tips to try harder next time, but by absolving it and removing it as far as the east is from the west so that it is no more. He says to all the penitent in Jeremiah 31:34, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” He is a gracious God to give us what we truly need to deal with sin: His perfect life, His atoning death on the cross, repentance and faith to believe His Gospel so that the angels in heaven rejoice over us.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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

Jesus tells a parable in which a certain man prepares a rich supper and invites many people to enjoy it. But those whom he had invited don’t attend. They excuse themselves. One has just bought a piece of land and needs to go out to see it. He values his possessions more than the supper. Another excuses himself so that he can go test out five new yoke of oxen he has purchased. He values his work more than the supper. Another excuses himself, saying that he is recently married and therefore cannot attend. He values his bride more than the supper. There is nothing wrong with property and possessions. They are gifts from God protected the Seventh Commandment. There is nothing sinful with work and enjoying the good of labor. Work itself was instituted by God before the fall into sin. Moses tells us in Genesis 2:15 that “the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 3:13 that “Every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor — it is the gift of God.” Likewise, there is certainly nothing sinful with marriage, either. Like work, it was instituted by God in paradise before the fall into sin. God unites men and women together in holy matrimony to become one flesh and build a life together. All these things are blessings and gifts from the generous hand of God the Father Almighty. But like the pagans of old who worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25), those who declined the invitation to the great supper cared more for those gifts that belong to this life than the gift that belongs to both this life and the life of the world to come.

The great supper is that gift. It is the gospel. It is the good new that God, for Jesus’ sake, freely forgives all sins to those who repent their sins and believe on His Son. God had prepared this feast from the foundation of the world. He first announced it to Adam and Eve after their sin, telling the devil, “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15). God the Father send Moses and the prophets who foretold the coming of the Christ, His atoning death, and the peace and joy of conscience His gospel would bring. They invite Israel and all who hear to come to the feast being prepared. God the Father prepared the great supper by sending His only-begotten Son in human flesh, who then Himself invited all men, women, and children to the great supper of the gospel, so that they might feast on Him by faith and taste and see that the LORD is good (Ps 34:8) to those who place their trust in Him.

But those invited would not come. The Jews made excuses. They preferred the things of this life to the blessings Jesus offered in the great supper of the gospel. They preferred the land of Canaan and would rather have a Messiah who would reestablish the former boundaries and glory of the earthly kingdom of Israel. They preferred their work, not so much the work of their own hands as the self-chosen religious works by which they sought to please God and bring about His kingdom. They preferred the commandments of men to the doctrine of God because the doctrine of God touches the heart and not merely the hands, and the external is much easier than the internal. Others preferred their brides, not their actually brides, but carnal pleasures. After all, those who rejected the invitation of Jesus were the same people who had asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” (Matt 19:3). So many of the Jews of Jesus day heard Jesus’ invitation and thought themselves above it. They preferred other things over the great supper of the gospel and so they excused themselves from it.

In the parable, when the master of the house heard the excuses of those he had invited, he became angry and said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” This is what Jesus did. He preached to the poor in spirit, those who understood they had no work good enough to offer God, but that all their righteousnesses are like filthy rags (Is 64:6). He preached to those maimed by their sins, with spiritual legs hobbled so that struggled to walk in the ways of the Lord. He invited the blind to see, not just with eyes of flesh but eyes of faith. He invited not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble (1 Cor. 1:26), but fishermen and tax collectors, those whom the world looks down upon and despises.

In the parable, the servant tells his master that He has done this and there is still room at the great supper. So the master of the house tells the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” This is the call of the gentiles. Christ wasn’t satisfied to invite the children of Abraham only. He wanted to His Father’s house to be filled. Christ then sent His apostles to the gentiles, telling them, “Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20). When Paul and Barnabas are rejected by the Jews, they say, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). The invitation went out through all the world and continues to go out into all the world, so that nearly two thousand years later, we in this place—and those watching from wherever they are watching this recording—hear Christ’s invitation to the great supper of the gospel once again. It continues to go forth and will go forth until the last day for Christ Himself said in Matthew 24:14, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

But what is Jesus’ parable to us who are already sitting here, attending to the great supper of the gospel? What is it to us who have heeded Christ’s call and accepted His invitation by the faith God the Holy Ghost has worked in us? It is encouragement to keep esteeming the gospel highly, so highly that you do not despise preaching and God’s word but gladly hear and learn it as often as you have opportunity. It’s encouragement because it reminds each of us what this gospel is. It is a great supper. It is how our Lord feeds and nourishes us to everlasting life. Jesus tells the crowd in John 6:53, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” He is speaking about the spiritual eating of His flesh and blood, which is faith in Christ’s word, that we apply it to ourselves, rely firmly and with perfect confidence and assurance upon this consolation that we have a gracious God and eternal life for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, and support ourselves by it in every time of need and in all temptations (SD VII.62). Christ compares the gospel—Himself, really—to a great supper to remind us that we must be feasting on Him by faith daily. If we eat several meals each day to nourish our body and physical life, how much more should we be applying God’s word to ourselves and supporting ourselves by it in every trial and temptation? Jesus’ word to Satan in the desert, which was also His word to Israel in the wilderness, applies to us in the wilderness of this life: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4).

Just as if we stop eating physical food, so if we neglect Christ’s invitation, our faith with weaken and die. So the parable serves as a warning as well. There are many and manifold things in this life that vie for our attention. The sinful flesh in which we all live wants, like the Jews in the parable, to value the things of this life—both sinful things and the good gifts of God—more highly than hearing God’s word and applying it to ourselves. These things grapple with us, inviting us to trust in them for our spiritual nourishment and sustenance. All of them want us to value them as our highest good rather than the great supper of Christ and His gospel. If we choose the things and esteem them more highly than God’s word, then the final words of the Lord in the parable should call us to repentance: “I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.” He compels us, not by force or coercion, but by showing us our sins so that He might drive us to Him as our Savior. He warns us with this condemnation and woos us with this invitation. With the warning we curb our flesh’s desire to think of other things, and ourselves, more highly than we ought. But with the invitation—“Come, for all things are now ready,” we rejoice that that though we were among the the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind, God has called us to Christ’s supper so that we may feast on His forgiveness and fare sumptuously on our Savior, and by such eating, be nourished for new life here and unto life everlasting in eternity. Amen.

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

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

Today’s epistle lessons sets the entire Christian life before us. It consists of two things. First, the apostle says, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” God is love. Not the way the world thinks of God as love. The world thinks “God is love” means “God loves everybody just the way they are and wants them to be happy just the way they are, no matter what they think they are how they’re behaving.” But God teaches us in Scripture that God’s love isn’t tolerance. “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son,” meaning, “This is the way God loved the world, by giving His only-begotten Son into death to pay for the world’s sins, so that “whoever believes in Him”—not just that He exists or that He is the Son of God, but repents of their sins and trusts Him as their only mediator with God—“shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This is the love that God is. And God wants all people to believe this, to repent of their sins, and to abide in His love by living in it each day, by using the gospel faithfully. Enduring, persevering faith is how we abide in God and God in us.

God’s love is perfected among us in this, John goes on: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. When the unbeliever thinks of the judgment to come—if they think of it of all—he imagines he’ll pass muster based on how good he’s been, or at least how good he’s intended to be. But with this comes a certain amount of uncertainty about the verdict that will be rendered about him. Not so the Christian, the one who abides in, dwells in, and lives in God’s love given in Christ. The Christian has boldness in the day of judgment. The Christian can be confident to stand before the judgment seat of Christ because the Christ who judges is the same Christ in whose love he has been abiding throughout his life. John says we are confident because as He is, so are we in this world. What is Christ? He is the only-begotten Son of God the Father, who rose to new life and ascended far above all the heavens, victorious over the devil and world, ruling in the midst of His enemies. As He is, so are we in this world. Christ is the Son of God and we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. In baptism He has clothed us with Himself, His merits, His righteousness, and adopted us as children of God the Father, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). As He is risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God the Father almighty, we too are risen from the death of sin by baptism, alive with the life of God the Son. We, too, ascend, not bodily as He did, but as Paul says, we seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, we set our mind on things above, not on things on the earth . For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory (Col 3:1-4). This is what we are in the world. We are sons of God, who are victorious over our enemies of temptation, death, and the devil, who set our minds on things above, not things below.

And when we dwell in this perfect love of God the Father, we have no need to fear any judgment. This is the confidence of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 4[:3-4] when He writes, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.” Abiding in God’s love, repenting sins as soon as the Holy Ghost convicts us of them, and immediately fleeing to the gospel of perfect forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, drives out all fear of judgment. If we fear torment and punishment for our sins, then we aren’t perfected in love. And who of us can say that we are perfected in God’s love in this life, so that we never have a moment of fear of sin, its consequences, and the final judgment? No one, since we still live in the sinful flesh. But God gives us the Holy Spirit so that when the conscience does quail in fear, when the terrors of guilt do come upon us, He may bring us to repentance and then back to God’s special love for all who repent of their sins and believe in His Son. We love God, after all, because He first loved us. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8), without any merit or worthiness on our part. Believing this to be most certainly true, that this is how God the Father has loved us, we then love Him and abide in His love each day by a true and lively faith.

That’s the first part of the Christian life: faith. Then John moves to the second part of the Christian life. “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” Faith and love toward God is a living and active thing that will show itself, not only in hearing God’s Word, prayer, and patient endurance in suffering, but in love. Faith works through love for the brethren, by which John means our fellow Christians. If someone says he loves God but hates his fellow Christians, he is a liar. And who would actually hate his brother in Christ? It’s easier to do than it might seem. When we hear the word hate we think of intense dislike, aversion, or hostility towards someone. Scripture sometimes uses the word like that. But at other times to hate something means to esteem it less than something else. Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” When disciples serve mammon by fretting over it, they’re not hostile towards God—they think too little of Him. Jesus says in Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” Christ doesn’t want us to be hostile and adverse to our family in our following of Him. He’s telling us that we can’t think more highly of them than we do Jesus and His word, so that we allow them to remain in sins simply because they’re our family. If anyone says He loves God, yet despises His brother, thinks little of him, and doesn’t esteem as a fellow son of God through baptism and faith, then He is a liar.

The rich man in today’s gospel lesson is the example par excellence of hating one’s brother. He despised Lazarus, a fellow Israelite and son of Abraham. He didn’t esteem Lazarus for what he was, a child of God through faith. He hated Lazarus. If the rich man had loved the poor beggar he would have helped him. He would have invited to him to his table, or at the very least, fed him at the gate. And since he had no love for his brother Israelite, he did not love God, no matter how much he may have boasted of it to others. He didn’t love God for His mercy which is why, when He died, he goes to Hades to be tormented in flame of fire. There he realizes that he needs mercy. But the chasm is fixed and no mercy can be given, not even a drop, not even the mercy of knowing he did something to save his five brothers from that place. They, like he while alive, have Moses and the Prophets—the word of God, Holy Scripture—and if they will not believe the Word of God, they won’t repent and believe because a man rises from the dead.

Lazarus, on the other hand, is the example par excellance of faith. Jesus doesn’t tell us about His faith, nor does he have any works. How could he, he was full of sores and was laid at the rich man’s gate? But Jesus proves that He had faith by the fact that when He dies, he was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. Lazarus had the faith of Abraham. Lazarus had nothing good in this life, yet, Paul’s words about Abraham in Romans 4[:40-21] apply to him: “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.” The circumstances of life didn’t matter one bit. Abraham was rich, Lazarus poor. Abraham was healthy, Lazarus was sickly. But both believed God’s promise and neither set heart on their circumstances—wealth and health on the one hand, poverty and sickness on the other. This is why Lazarus is carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom, paradise, the only destination for all who die in faith, enduring until the end. This faith in God, who is love, saved both Abraham and Lazarus, and continues to save all who abide in it. It gives boldness in the day of judgment because it believes that as Christ is, we are, by faith. Since we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, we love our neighbors, but especially the brethren, so that we do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith (Gal 6:10). For this commandment we have from Christ, that he who loves God must love his brother also, not because we have to, but because we love the God who loved us first, who sent His only-begotten Son for us. This faith cannot help but work through love. Amen.

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

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

Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, approached Jesus one night to learn the gospel from Him. Jesus begins at the beginning. “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” There must be a rebirth, a second birth, for anyone who who wants experience God’s kingdom. It isn’t enough to be a child of Abraham, a ruler of the Jews, or a righteous man in the eyes of others. Rebirth is required. But Nicodemus doesn’t understand. “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” he asks. He’s stuck in fleshly thinking that can’t understand the things of God. While Jesus speaks of a rebirth, a second birth, He describes this birth as being one from heaven. The word translated again can also be translated from above, and Jesus uses the word with both meanings in mind. To see the kingdom of God, one must be born a second time, yes, but that second birth is not like the first. Just as no one decides to be born of their parents, no one decides to be born again from above because the rebirth comes from above, not from below. Jesus restates what He had just said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The rebirth from above is one that happens by water and the Spirit. Not water on one occasion and the Spirit on another, but water and the Spirit together, as when God created the heavens and the earth and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (Gen 1:2). The Lord had promised in Ezekiel 36[:25-26] to cleanse Israel of their sin and idols with the sprinkling of water, and by the water give them a new heart and a new spirit, for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Jesus speaks of this new heart and spirit given in baptism, this rebirth, when he tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Jewish males, on the eighth day of their lives, received the outward, visible mark of circumcision so that everyone, themselves included, would know they were members of Israel. But the rebirth of water and the spirit would marked Jew and Gentile alike, not with an lasting, outward mark, but with new hearts and spirits. Just as you cannot see the wind with the eyes of flesh, so you look at the reborn and tell it by sight. One hears the wind. One sees its effects in the trees. One hears the sound it makes as it passes through different places. So it is with those who are reborn from above by water and the Spirit. One will see the effects of the Holy Spirit working a new spirit within the reborn. The effects of the new spirit and heart grow as the reborn die daily to sin (1 Cor 15:31), since they have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal5:24). One will hear the effects of the Holy Spirit as their conversation grows more and more into what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers (Eph 4:29), putting aside the corrupt speaking of the world, and growing more and more into speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as the apostle says (Eph 5:19). As the wind’s presence is known by its sound and its movements, so it is with the baptized, they are known by their words and deeds. The first birth of the flesh accomplishes none of this. Being a fleshly birth it only gives birth to sinful flesh. But when sinner are reborn by the Holy Spirit and water, they are reborn from above as new creatures, as children of God.

When Nicodemus asks, “How can these things be?” Jesus teaches Him about His authority to teach this. “Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” The we is Jesus and God the Father. He said in John 8:28, “As My Father taught Me, I speak these things” and in John 12:50, “Whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.” The earthly thing of baptism, being reborn by water and the Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is God the Father’s word and will for mankind. Jesus teaches this because He is the One who came down from heaven. He tells Nicodemus that He is God the Son, eternally begotten of His Father, whom the Father had taught all things, not in that there was a time when He didn’t know the Father’s Word, but in the sense that the Father gave Him all things that were His own by begetting Him from eternity. He is the Word of God, after all, who was with God, and who was God (Jn 1:1) from eternity. He has descended to earth, assumed human nature so that He might teach these things of God the Father to Israel—and then to the Gentiles—so that all may be born again from above and enter God’s kingdom.

Then Jesus adds that the One who descended from heaven and who will ascend to heaven again must be lifted up. He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” To be lifted up in this sense means to be lifted up on the tree of the cross because that’s what Moses did with the bronze serpent. In Numbers 21 when Israel complained, the Lord sent fiery serpents and whoever they bit died. When Israel repented—and only when they repented—did the Lord tell Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (Num 21:8). As the serpent was lifted up on the pole so that all who looked to it in faith, trusting the promise God had attached to it, so the Son of Man would be lifted up on the cross, so that all who look to Him in faith would not perish from the serpent’s bite of sin, but have everlasting life. The Son of Man must be lifted up to atone for the world’s sins, to acquire perfect remission of sins and perfect righteousness so that the Holy Spirit can apply them to sinners in the gospel, in baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. The Son of God descends to earth to assume flesh and die for the sins of the world, so that all who are reborn from above by water and the Holy Spirit may ascend with Him and dwell with Him there.

It is in the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit—as Paul calls it in Titus 3:5—that we see most clearly the doctrine of the Blessed Holy Trinity, which we celebrate today. We confess the faith of the Athanasian Creed because we believe them, because which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally. We believe with our hearts and confess with our mouths, but we do not fully understand, nor can we as finite creatures. We believe there is one God who exists in three persons and the three persons of the Godhead are uncreated, incomprehensible, eternal, and almighty, so that in this Trinity none is greater or less than another, even though the Father who is unbegotten begets the Son and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. We believe and confess this to be the catholic—the universal, that is,—Christian faith because this what Holy Scripture teaches us about the One God who is three distinct persons, each fully divine, each fully God. And although the three persons work inseparably from creation, through redemption all the way until the consummation of the age, it is chiefly in baptism, our baptisms, where we see the Trinity’s work the most clearly. We are reborn of water and God the Holy Spirit. He rebirths us by applying the benefits Jesus earned at the cross to us and creating faith in us that receives these benefits, so that we become children of God the Father, younger brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ—the Son of God by nature—and temples of God the Holy Ghost. The Triune God rebirths us from above so that we receive a new heart and new spirit, which show forth to ourselves and the world not as external mark, but in our life and conversation.

Dear baptized saints of God, we live amongst many who deny the Triune God. Many religions deny Him officially in their public statements of faith. These religions cannot offer any salvation because what they believe in an idol. Others deny the Triune God functionally, in practice, by only ever speaking of a generic “god.” Still others deny Him by overemphasizing one person of the Godhead. But the catholic faith which was the apostles preached and preach to the Last Day through their writings is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, meaning we worship God the Father who sent God the Son into the world in human flesh to bear our sins and be our savior, so that He might give us God the Holy Ghost to give us faith and rebirth us in baptism, so that we become children of God the Father. In short, we worship the one God who baptized us, who has given us new hearts and new spirits, and who has promised everlasting life to all who believe and are baptized. Let our lives be one of continual confession and praise of the Blessed Holy Trinity, “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen”(Rom 11:36 ).

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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

Forty days after He rose from the dead Christ ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father almighty. Ten days later the Feast of Pentecost began. Pentecost was the Greek name for the Feast of Weeks, one of the three times a year the Lord commanded all men of Israel to appear before Him (Dt 16:16). Israel had dispersed and lived among the nations for centuries, but many had come back for Passover and then Pentecost. That’s why there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,Cretans and Arabs. They had probably been dwelling in Jerusalem for Passover which was only fifty days before. Luke tells us that on that day the apostles were all with one accord in one place, when three things happened. There came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Everyone in multitude hears the wonderful works of God—the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus—preached in their own native tongue. They’re amazed. Rightly so. They’re perplexed. Rightly so. The apostles are all Galileans, and yet here they are speaking in languages they had never studied, and speaking the gospel in their own language clearly and confidently.

That’s the point of it all, after all, that they hear the gospel, the word of Jesus, so that they might believe it, keep it, and abide in it unto everlasting life. The signs all point to the importance of the word. There came a sound from heaven that fills the house. The sound is like that of a rushing, mighty wind, but note that there isn’t a rushing, mighty wind, but its sound. You cannot see the Spirit. He is only known through the sound of preaching. Tongues as of fire appeared and sat on each one of the apostles. Why fire? Because the Holy Spirit descends on the twelve to speak God’s word, and God’s word is like fire. The Lord told Jeremiah, “Because you speak this word, Behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire, And this people wood, And it shall devour them” (Jer 5:14). The prophet later said, “His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not” (Jer 20:9). It is not an impotent word. It is a creative. It is living. It is active. It accomplishes the thing for which God sends it, as it convicts sinners of their transgressions and guilt and as it creates faith in the gospel in human hearts that consoles and comforts convicted consciences. Tongues as of fire point to the new tongues in their mouths. The apostles were uneducated and untrained men (Acts 4:13) who had never studied these languages, but even the different tongues are not the point of Pentecost, but what they speak with the tongues the Spirit gave them.

What they speak with the the tongues the Spirit gave them at that time was Jesus. He had told them, “When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27). In today’s appointed gospel He tells them, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” The Holy Spirit descends on the apostles in this new way so that they might testify of Jesus. The Holy Spirit descends on them to teach them all things by bringing to their remembrance everything Jesus had taught them. The Holy Spirit condemns their unbelief, “You have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death” (Acts 2:23), but God has raised Him up. It the same Jesus whom they crucified that God has raised up and exalted to His right hand, so that “ God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Those whose hearts are devoured by this consuming fire and repent, asking what they should do about all this, hear the gospel: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). The signs were given so that these men might hear the gospel so that the Holy Spirit might do His greatest work: creating faith in their hearts through the word and baptism.

It is the Holy Spirit’s work that we believe in Jesus. “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). It’s the Holy Spirit’s work that we are born again in the waters of Holy Baptism. It is the Holy Spirit’s work that the inward man—the new man in us—is being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16), and this renewal He begins when He rebirths us in baptism. This is why Paul calls baptism the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit in Titus 3:5. The Holy Spirit’s work in all this is that we love the Lord Jesus who gave Himself for us, who washes in baptism, and daily forgives us, who gives us His Holy Spirit, and regularly feeds us with His very body and blood. Jesus tells us in today’s appointed gospel, “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 which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” The Holy Spirit is given to us to kindle in our hearts a love of Christ, and fan into flame that love of Christ so that we keep His Word. To keep His word means to hear it as often as we have opportunity, since faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17). Keeping His word means abiding in it, reading it, meditating upon it day and night, since His words are spirit and life (John 6:63). Keeping His word means living according to His Word, being doers of the word and not hearers only. James says, “He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25).

And look at the blessings Christ promises to those who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, love Him and keep His word. He says, “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” The Holy Ghost prepares our hearts as dwelling places, not for Himself only, for the three persons of the Godhead work inseparably due to the one nature. He washes us in Holy Baptism and gives us new hearts so that God the Father and Jesus Himself will come and well within us. God’s presence isn’t something we feel or sense in some mystical way. Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, Paul says in Ephesians 3:17. The Holy Spirit makes us temples of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, so that the Triune God is with us always as long as we are keeping Jesus’ word in faith. If we choose to sin we grieve the Holy Ghost and He departs from us just as the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul (1 Sam 16:14) after His deliberate sinning. If let sin reign in us so that we obey its desires, the Holy Spirit will not abide when unrighteousness comes in” (Wisdom 1:5) because He dwells in us—as well as the Father and the Son—so that He may rule over us with His mercy and train us in godliness. He dwells in us to keep us from false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. The Holy Spirit dwells in us—as well as the Father and the Son—so that we do not sin, but also so that if we do sin, He may lead us immediately back to the word of the gospel to receive forgiveness and the joy that comes with it, as well as newness of life.

For where the Triune God dwells, there is peace. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” The peach of Jesus is the peace of sins forgiven and guilt removed as far as the east is from the west. The peace of Jesus is the peace of knowing that if the Father did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with [Christ] also freely give us all things? (Ro8:32). The peace of Jesus is the peace of knowing that He has secured victory for us in every temptation as long as we keep His word and practice it. The peace of Jesus is is the peace of mind that knows, no matter how wicked the world gets, no matter how evil the world is, the final victory is ours because He has already conquered the sin, death, the world, and the power of the devil. There is no reason for our hearts to be troubled and weighed down with the cares of this life. When we find our hearts heavy laden with troubles, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our hearts by faith, wants to bring to your remembrance all things that Jesus has said to you, all the promises He has made to you in His word and at your baptism. He could gives us great signs as He did on that Pentecost fifty days after Christ’s resurrection, but He doesn’t promise to that for everyone, nor in every age of the church. But He does promise to work through the word of Jesus, which was what those signs pointed to anyway, so that you might firmly believe and in no wise doubt His word, but keep it so that God dwells with you and gives you His peace. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.