He comes down from heaven to earth, in order to raise you up from death to Life. He comes to set you free from everything that weighs you down and binds you, and to bring you into His own House and Home, to live with Him in His Kingdom.
He casts out all your demons and heals all your diseases, and He bestows the Spirit of His God and Father upon you, in divine and holy Love, with forgiveness of all your sins; so that you shall be — as you are now by His grace — a beloved child of God in Him, in Jesus Christ, your Lord.
His coming, however, isn’t entirely comfortable. Indeed, it presents a striking confrontation. For it involves a clash between heaven and hell, between God and the devil; and what is at stake is a matter of everlasting Life or eternal death. So the coming of Christ Jesus is to be taken seriously, but you will only get your bearings right by the Word and Spirit of the Lord in His preaching.
The difficulty is that the coming and the real presence of the Holy One of God appears as a threat to those caught in the grip of sin and unbelief. Satan would have the sons and daughters of man regard the coming of the Christ as yet another accusation. That old serpent, the devil, twists and distorts your perception in order to stir up guilt and shame, anger and defensiveness; so that, when you hear the voice of the Lord and the sound of His approach, you are driven by fear of death and destruction to fight or to flee, even though Jesus comes, not to destroy you, but to save you.
You know how it is, and you have felt this way at times. Perhaps today, right here and now. The man with the spirit of an unclean demon is not an outsider. That guy is “in the synagogue,” in the midst of the people, a member of the congregation. And yet, he is terrified of Jesus and denounces Him with loud protests: “This ‘goody-two-shoes,’ this so-n-so, is all uppity and ‘holier-than-thou,’ and now He comes in here with His attitude, His nose in the air, to criticize and condemn us all. His religion is nothing but rules and regulations, requiring strict obedience and outlawing any fun.”
This is such a common perception of Christ Jesus and of His Christians, too. You probably have family and friends who have made similar remarks, perhaps with loud and angry voices at times. Maybe you have also said or thought such things, yourself. And maybe this popular picture of Christ and Christianity makes you uneasy and puts you on edge because it cuts too close to home.
To be sure, this distortion of things has some basis in the truth, both the good and the bad of it. For one thing, the Word of the Lord, His good and acceptable Will, does include His holy and righteous Law. There is right and wrong, and you are required to do the one and avoid the other. You shall be holy, as the Lord your God is holy. You are created and called to be perfect, as your God and Father in heaven is perfect. And this same Law of God condemns you and sentences you to punishment, now and forever; because the soul that sins shall die, and you are a sinner. That is the truth, as difficult as that is to hear, and as painful as that is to process.
Then there is also the sad reality that Christians too often are vindictive, judgmental, overbearing, and self-righteous. But don’t start running through your list of people you know who are like that. Rather, examine yourself, your own thoughts, words, and actions, and repent of your sins against the faith and love of God and against your neighbor. When you who bear the Name of Christ Jesus are characterized by anger, by a quick and harsh temper, by criticism of others, by impatience, and by a reluctance or refusal to forgive those who trespass against you, then you add more fuel to the demonic fires of Satan; and then you are yourself in need of cleansing from such a spirit as that.
But, for all of that, the true holiness and actual purpose of Christ Jesus are quite otherwise than the demons and unclean spirits suppose and would have you think. For while the Lord Jesus and His preachers do preach the Law and repentance, He does even this in holy Love, in the service of the Gospel, for the forgiveness of your sins, unto faith and eternal Life with God. His purpose is not destruction but restoration, healing, and salvation. His holiness is manifest, not in death, but in Life and Light and Love. His perfection is not that of arrogance or accusation, but of grace, mercy, and peace. He comes, not with condemnation, but with compassion. And He comes, not to hurt or harm you in any way, but to lay down His own Life for you and for all people on the Cross.
It is this Gospel of His Cross that He preaches to you. And by His Word He releases you from bondage and cleanses you from sin. He sets your conscience free from the accusation of the Law and from guilt and shame. Not that you are free to continue in your sins — for that path leads to death — but Christ Jesus sets you free to live a new and real life, one with meaning and purpose in Him, now and forever. In calling you daily to repentance, He does not place the burden on you, but He unchains you from the devil’s slavery and from the relentless fear of death that Satan holds over your head. As at your Baptism, Christ Jesus declares that the unclean spirit must depart from you, that the Holy Spirit may reside within you and rest and remain upon your body and soul.
The Lord Jesus truly is the Holy One of God. Yet, He does not “lord it over you” with a haughty nose in the air; He rather sanctifies you by His grace and glorifies you with His own holiness. So, too, He is the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, who is anointed with the Spirit in His Body of flesh and blood in order to pour out the same Holy Spirit generously upon you in peace. And He has been named the Son of God, also as true Man, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in order to make you a child of His God and Father by the gracious adoption of sons, by His Gospel.
It is God the Father Himself, not the devil nor the demons, who has already openly declared the Lord Jesus to be His beloved and well-pleasing Son, the Christ, His Anointed. He did so by the speaking of His Word and the gift of His Spirit as Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan.
One cannot know or confess Jesus rightly as the Christ, the Son of God, apart from His Baptism. Which is also to say that you cannot know or confess Christ Jesus rightly apart from His Cross and Resurrection, for that is what His Baptism signifies and sacramentally lays upon Him. Especially from that point onward, that is, from His Baptism in the Jordan River, it is not possible to separate His Word and His works from the Cross on His horizon. So, too, the life and health and strength that He bestows by His Word and works are the vitality of His own Resurrection from the dead.
It is by the power and authority of His Cross and Resurrection that the Kingdom of God comes in and with the preaching of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. For the Word of God in His mouth is the forgiveness of His Cross and the Righteousness and Life of His Resurrection from the dead.
In truth, the preaching of Christ Jesus not only declares the coming or the presence of the Kingdom of God, but His preaching already is the Kingdom of God; for it is by the living and active Word of His Gospel that He calls and gathers the nations to Himself and reigns over them in Love. And it is by the preaching of His Cross and Resurrection that He treads Satan, sin, and death beneath His feet, and that He raises you up in health and wholeness to the holiness of a brand new Life.
It is true that His preaching necessarily includes the Law, which exposes your sins from the inside-out and accuses you of them. Yet, His preaching is not primarily an accusation, but the removal of the accusation. It is the Gospel that predominates His preaching, which is the free and full forgiveness of all your sins. Hence, there is no accusation anymore, nor any reason to fear death or the devil. His Gospel muzzles the demonic accuser and compels him to be quiet. So does He freely bestow His blessed peace and quiet rest to your heart and mind, your body, soul, and spirit
It is for your body, also, which shall be raised in glory in the Resurrection of all flesh. For Christ Jesus is the Creator of your body, and He has come in the Flesh with a Body of His own to save your body for the Life everlasting. He has accomplished this great salvation for you by His bodily dying and rising, by the shedding of His holy, precious Blood upon the Cross. And so it is that, not only with the preaching of His Word, but with the touch of His hand, He heals you, releases you from bondage, cleanses you from every evil of body and soul, and raises you up alive.
As He has made you His own and given you His Holy Name and Holy Spirit by the washing of the water with His Word in Holy Baptism, so does He now lay His hand upon you and feed you with His very own Flesh and Blood in the Holy Communion.
Like His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — so, too, in Confession and Holy Absolution — Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar also derive their power and authority from the Cross of Christ. So, then, all of this is scary, and it seems deadly and destructive, because of the Cross. For by the Cross you also are crucified, put to death, and buried with Christ Jesus.
By the ongoing significance of your Holy Baptism, by the preaching of repentance in the Name of Jesus, you are thrown down, as it were, in the midst of the people — like that poor man in the synagogue. And it surely seems like that will be the end of you. But, no, even though you die, yet shall you live. The Lord will not let the devil destroy you, no matter how fiercely the accuser rages against you. For the Cross of Christ has done away with sin and put death itself to death, so that now His Resurrection is your vindication, your righteousness, and your sure and certain hope.
Satan, sin, and death are not able to stand before this dear Lord Jesus Christ, who comes and enters in to lay hold of you in Love, to stand with you in every trial and temptation as your Champion and strong Defender, and to save you for Life with Himself in both body and soul forever and ever.
His Word and preaching, Flesh and Blood truly rescue and release you from the captivity and fear of sin and death. He brings you sweet relief from whatever it is that ails you, whether by removing it from you already here and now, or by granting you the patience and strength to bear it in peace until the resurrection of your body in glory at the last. Throughout your pilgrimage on earth He is daily restoring you in His Image and Likeness, and He is giving you the true Sabbath Rest, by the Liturgy of His Gospel within His Holy Christian Church. And as He sanctifies you with His Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of all your sins, so does He give you divine Life in Himself.
You have heard how Simon’s mother-in-law was released from her strong fever, how she was raised up by Christ Jesus, by His Word, and how she immediately began to serve Him and the rest of the household in love. This service of love — beginning with the tasks at hand within your own home and family and within the life of this congregation of the Lord’s Church — also belongs to the new Life that is yours in Jesus, which you live now by His grace through faith in His Gospel.
Rise up, then, to serve in your own place, as the Lord Jesus serves you here within His House. Do not make excuses for yourself, as to why you can’t or won’t. But do not suppose that you must sustain and live this life by your own power and savvy. And do not fear that Jesus has gone away and left you to your own devices, efforts, and failures. He has not. Nor shall He ever leave you.
The fact that He must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities, also, does not mean that He stops preaching to you. Just the opposite is true! He keeps on preaching in all the congregations of His Church on earth, in every time and place, and so also here and now in this city. Evening and morning, sunset and dawning, day by day by day, He comes and enters in, He preaches Peace, and He lays His hand upon you in divine and holy Love. For already in Simon Peter’s home He began to establish His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, in which His Name is preached and praised from the rising of the sun to the place of its going down, even to the close of the age.
Do not be afraid. And do not flee from His preaching. For here He stands and speaks with the authority of His Cross and Resurrection, not to destroy you, but to save you. Here He stretches forth His hand to feed you in body and soul, to raise you up with Himself unto the Life everlasting.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment