It is no wonder that you are thirsty. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Your lips are parched, your throat as dry as dirt, until God waters your soil with the living Waters of Christ Jesus, and so fills your body of flesh and bone with His Life-giving Holy Spirit.
Here then is your Eden, your Paradise on earth, your Oasis in a desert wilderness. For here, from the wounded side of Christ, from His innermost being, by the divine Glory of His Cross and in His Resurrection, the Lord pours forth the Holy Spirit like water into your thirsty soul. This Spirit is the Water of Life from the Rock of Ages, cleft for you. It is for this Drink that you have been created, and nothing else but this Gift of God Himself will quench or satisfy your thirst.
It is for this purpose that God has come in the flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And the Son receives the Spirit from His Father in His own Body of human flesh and blood — in the waters of His Baptism and in His Resurrection from the dead — in order to pour out the same Spirit of God upon all flesh. He receives and breathes the Spirit as true Man, that you might drink of the same Spirit and live forever with the Father in His Son.
So has the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ caused His Church to be planted and to prosper in this place, in order to pour out the living and Life-giving Waters of His Holy Spirit upon His people at Emmaus. In fact, it was on this date in 1922 that His disciples at St. Paul, South Bend, first met and began making plans for the beginning of this congregation in the following year.
But you know as well as I do that there are plenty of nearby alternatives, many of them attractive and enticing with promises of life and health and success. And the truth is that you are tempted and prone to sample whatever is on tap — to belly up to the bar and have a round — as often as you try to quench your thirst with other “waters,” other beverages of choice, and other “spirits.” Maybe it’s too much of God’s good gift of alcohol. But I’m not talking only about drunkenness or alcohol addiction. It could just as easily be bottled water and a health food diet that you make into your personal well spring, in the hopes of saving yourself and securing your body and life in the world. It is whatever you rely on to satisfy your thirst, to wet your lips and whet your appetites, to fill the empty hollow in your belly — even though any other water than the Spirit of Christ Jesus will not enliven your flesh but will leave you dying of thirst, like trying to live on salty sea water.
Repent of such foolish idolatry, which is not only sinful but deadly. Rather, come to Christ and drink freely and fully of the Holy Spirit, whom He pours out generously, without measure and without cost, for all who believe in Him. When you drink of Him, not only do you have abundant life with God in both your body and your soul, but then you are also able to receive, to use rightly, and to enjoy the good gifts of His whole creation. When your thirst is quenched and you are filled with the living Waters of the Holy Spirit, then, whatever your own beverage of choice may be, and whatever your diet is like, you eat and drink in faith and with thanksgiving to the glory of God.
The Spirit who proceeds from the Father in the Son is the Author and Perfecter of Life. He is worshiped and adored with the Father and the Son, because He is one and the same true God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. He bestows the true beauty of divine Wisdom in the world, as He gives growth and good order to all of creation; and by the Word of the Gospel of Christ Jesus He establishes the Church, the Kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.
Come to Christ, therefore, and drink of this living and Life-giving Spirit of God. Not by your own wisdom, reason, or strength, but where and when and how it pleases God, in the ways and means whereby the Lord reveals and gives Himself to you and pours out His Life-giving Spirit upon you.
It is by faith in His Word that you come to Christ. For the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel, and by the preaching of the Gospel He brings you to Christ Jesus, even as He lays this same Lord Jesus Christ upon your heart, mind, body, and soul, with His free and full forgiveness of all your sins.
Come to Christ by hearing and heeding His Word, which is preached to you by His Spirit in His Church. For the Church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all things; and the Spirit of His God and Father rests and remains upon His Body. His Church is the true Mountain of God, which surpasses both Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion. Here is the Tabernacle of God among men. Here is the Temple of the Holy Spirit in the one Body of Christ Jesus, in His Means of Grace.
By your Holy Baptism you are united with Christ in His Cross and Resurrection, and you receive the Holy Spirit in the external bodily means of water and the Word, as Christ received the Spirit in bodily form as a dove at His Baptism. So, too, you come to Christ and drink of His Spirit as often as the Lord returns you to the remembrance and significance of your Holy Baptism by way of repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins, especially by His Word of Holy Absolution.
What is more, the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus are your Spiritual Food and Drink, given and poured out for you in the Holy Communion. Here at His Altar you come to Christ and receive Him and His Holy Spirit, as He comes to you and gives Himself to you by His Ministry of the Gospel.
As you are thus taught by the Gospel in Word and Sacrament to know and love the Lord your God, to believe in Jesus Christ and come to Him, and to receive and drink deeply of His Holy Spirit, so do you also pray, praise, and give thanks in the Name of Jesus. You confess His Word and call upon His Name, and you are saved. For the Lord is merciful to all who call on Him, even as He has taught you and invited you to pray to Him in Peace, in the confidence of His Resurrection.
The teaching of this Word of Christ is not random or haphazard. It is beautifully arranged and laid before you, just as all of creation is ordered according to God’s glorious grace and wisdom, by His Word and Holy Spirit. The Gospel is unfolded for you in the story of Christ Jesus in the Flesh, in the pattern and progress of the Church Year: from Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, through Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, into the ongoing Life and work of Christ in the Time of the Church. Not only the stuff of creation, but the hours, days, weeks, and years, and all the seasons of your life on earth, are sanctified by the Gospel of Christ Jesus, by the Holy Spirit in and with that Word.
Thereby, within the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, the prayer of Moses is answered in the Body of Christ Jesus. That is to say, the Spirit of the Lord is poured out upon all flesh, and He rests upon all of the people of God, because Christ has been glorified by the Father in His Cross and Resurrection. So it is that you and all the disciples of Christ Jesus are taught by God, by the Gift of His Spirit. And you speak the Word of the Lord, confessing what He has spoken to you.
Still, there is an ordering of the Church’s life in Christ. All are one, and all are equal before God in the righteousness and holiness of Christ Jesus; for there is one Lord, one Spirit, and one God and Father of all, one faith, one Baptism, and one Body of Christ. Yet, the unity, equality, and harmony of His Body, the Church, is not that of undifferentiated sameness, formless and devoid of character. No, the Kingdom of God is ordered and arranged, like the artistry of the human body, like the genius of God’s good creation, with a great variety of different gifts, a wondrous panoply of sizes, shapes, and colors, of sights and sounds, and of beautiful contours and textures.
Not all are Moses. Not all are ordained elders in the Church. Not all are pastors and teachers, bishops, or deacons. But there is a diversity and distribution of the many gifts of the one Holy Spirit. There are different offices within the life of the Church, each of which bears the necessary graces of the Spirit for the fulfillment of God’s holy will and purposes. With such a variety of “voices,” with such a multiplicity of “languages,” the one Holy Gospel is confessed and is heard in all the world, from the rising of the sun to the place of its going down. So also here at Emmaus.
It is for this faithful confession of the Word of Christ Jesus that all Christians, with all their vast array of differences in personality, ability, interests, and skills, are each and all anointed and filled with one and the same Holy Spirit. So are they united to one another within the Holy Communion of the Body of Christ. Not to erase or eradicate all differences between them, but to give life to the entire household and family of God in Christ, to the praise and glory of His Holy Name.
Those who are thus given to drink of the Spirit of Christ, who are filled with such living Waters of the Lord, become springs of living Water and fountains of the Spirit for others, each of them within his or her own callings, in his or her own particular office and station in life. So, also, each one of you, in your own place, is a fountain of living Water for your neighbors in the world. And Emmaus is a part of that, too. Not a mirage, but a true oasis in the desert, despite any appearances or experience to the contrary. For the Word and Spirit of the Lord flow out from this holy place.
It is in, with, and under the Cross that such Waters spring up in you and water the earth; for it is by the Cross that Christ Himself is glorified, and by and from His Cross that the Spirit is given. Your place in life, your words and works, are consequently despised by the world — and by the fallen old man in yourself and others, too. Taunts of drunkenness are leveled at you. Even the New Wine of Christ, His holy and precious Blood, is blasphemed and disregarded in this way.
But do not be dismayed, and do not give up hope or grow weary of doing good. The Lord Himself is with you in, with, and under His Cross. As you are thirsty, come to Him and drink. You belong to the Kingdom of God, and the Spirit of God rests and remains upon you in Christ Jesus.
Blood and Fire and Vapor of Smoke, the Pillar and Cloud by night as by day, and all the signs of the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus — these are not a denial or contradiction of God’s Kingdom here with you; they are signs of His Power and His Glory and of His gracious Presence.
The Kingdom of God has been established in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus. Not only once upon a time, nor only here and now, but forever and always. His Body abides for all the years yet to come, even to the close of the age, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.
Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, anointed by the Spirit in His own Body of flesh and blood, is the fulfillment and perfection of the Lord’s Old Testament Liturgy of grace, and so also God’s ordering of time and space. He is the true Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for you. His Blood has redeemed you, it marks your door to guard and protect you from death, and it is poured out upon your lips and tongue and down your throat to quench your deepest thirst. And His Flesh is given you to eat for the freedom of forgiveness and faith. The same Lord Jesus Christ is the true Pentecost, the Firstborn from the dead, the Firstfruits of the New Creation. His Body and His Blood are the Atonement by which you are reconciled to God, received by the Father, and able to rejoice in Him who is your Lord and Savior. For He is the Tabernacle of God who abides with you, and you with Him, from the wilderness into Canaan. He breathes the Spirit of Life into your body by His Word of the Gospel, and He pours out the same Spirit from His side in the Water and the Blood, in order to cleanse and refresh you within and without, in your body and your soul.
All of this that He has done for you and for all people was promised and prepared for by the times and epochs ordained by the Father in the Old Covenant, in the pilgrim festivals that He instituted through Moses. But now they have been accomplished in Christ Jesus, and they are bestowed upon you in the Sundays and Seasons of the Church Year. Not as a new Law, but as the Gospel, from Jubilee unto Jubilee, in the gladness, joy, and righteousness of the Resurrection. This Lord’s Day — and every Day of Grace — is shaped, defined, determined, and filled by the Word of Christ Jesus, and thereby sanctified by the Holy Spirit as your true Sabbath Rest in Him who loves you.
So, then, although you do not know when that great and final Day of Judgment will come upon all flesh, the fullness of the time has come and is here for you in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.
Here is the last, great Day of the Feast: The eternal Eighth Day of the Resurrection and of the Life everlasting. The Lord has brought you thus far by His grace, by His Word and Holy Spirit, to believe His holy Word and live a godly life here in time and hereafter in eternity. And according to His steadfast loving-kindness, He feeds you here and now with His Spiritual Food and Drink.
Are you hungry? Take and eat the Body of Christ. And you who are thirsty, come and drink the Blood of Christ, poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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