Have this attitude in yourself, which was in Christ Jesus. Have the mind of Christ, His heart and Spirit. That is more than just a mind set or a world view; it is to lay down your life in love for those who hate you, to serve those who persecute you, and to pray for those who speak ill of you.
That is what the life of God in the Flesh is like. So, then, if you would be like Him, if you would bear His Name and live as His child, think and speak and act like that, as Christ Jesus does.
Are you ready, willing, and able to do so? As Simon Peter boasted, are you ready to go with Jesus, even to prison and to death? To follow Him to the Cross, to be mocked and ridiculed, beaten up and spit upon? Or do you fear even the questions, accusations, and opinions of others?
How easily are you swayed in your resolve by what other people might think or say or do? How quickly do their loud voices drown out your reason, your faith, and your confession of Christ Jesus, so that you give Him up and hand Him over? For what? For money, friends, safety, or freedom?
Pray, as the Lord Jesus prays for you, and as He has taught you to pray, that you would not enter into temptation, and that your faith in Him would not fail.
That is what happened to Judas Iscariot. His lust for money opened his heart to the temptations of the devil, and he sold out his Friend, the Lord Jesus, for cash. Pray that you don’t go there.
Consider what Christ Jesus is like, and how different He is from the kings and rulers, presidents and princes of this world, who lord it over their subjects even by giving out their “favors.” They like to be called “benefactors,” because it makes them feel like gods, as though all things were at their disposal. So they distribute their favors to those who tickle their fancy and stroke their ego.
But the true King, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is not like this at all. He does not count His equality with God as something to be clung to and hoarded to His own advantage. He knows who He is, and He knows and loves and trusts His Father — and in such confidence, with a heart of compassion, He empties Himself and makes Himself nothing. He is true God in the Flesh, but He takes into His Flesh the sins of the world, the curse and consequences of death and damnation.
In holy faith and holy love He humbles Himself entirely in obedience to the Father who sent Him, in order to save you and all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam from sin, death, the devil, and hell. It is in this way that He is your Lord; not by bossing you about or pushing you around, but by giving Himself into death for your Life and Salvation, and so also by seating you at His Table and serving you with His forgiveness of sins and the gift of His own Body and Blood, that you might live with Him in His Kingdom, by His grace, in righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
This is the true Glory of God in the Flesh of Jesus Christ. For divine Glory is not found in what the world calls great and powerful. It is rather found in what the world considers to be weak and foolish and impotent. In particular, the Glory of God is manifested and revealed in Christ Jesus, the Crucified One, who willingly lays down His Body and Life, sheds His own Blood, and suffers and dies upon the Cross, in order to save you and all people by and with His forgiveness of sins.
The world does sometimes speak of “forgiveness,” but it usually does not know what it’s talking about. Indeed, there is no real forgiveness apart from Christ Jesus, who does not make excuses, who does not rationalize or wink at sin, who does not merely offer second chances, or whatever else the world offers in the way of barter and bargain. He does not excuse sin, He forgives it. And that is not a cheap or easy transaction, but one that He accomplishes at the greatest personal cost.
He does it in the Passion of His Love for you, even to the point of His death on the Cross. And so, too, it is in His Love for you that He calls you to repentance, bids you take up the Cross and follow after Him, and disciplines you in the Way of Life by His Word and Holy Spirit. He is not out to destroy you or make your life miserable! He wounds you and puts you to death with His Law, in order to heal you and raise you up to newness of life with the forgiveness of His Gospel.
And all of this that He now works in you by the preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins, He has first of all accomplished for you (and for all people) in His own Body of Flesh and Blood, by His sacrificial death upon the Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead unto Life eternal.
So does He also come to you now, in the same Body of Flesh and Blood, crucified and risen from the dead, in order to “save you now.” By and with His Body — from the Altar of His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead — He reigns over you in Love with the Fruits of His Passion.
In His going up to Jerusalem and in His being lifted up on the Cross, He reconciles you to God and raises you up to the Father in heaven. He has descended from the heights of the Mountain and has taken up your sin as His burden, bearing all that weight in His own Body to the Cross; and He has taken you up, as well, and gone back up the Mountain to God, bearing you to the Father.
So it is that He is wounded, in order to heal you. And He is put to death, in order to give you Life. For He numbers Himself with transgressors — beginning already with His Baptism in the Jordan River (now completed in His death). Do you recall? When all the people were baptized — when the sinners were coming, repenting, confessing their sins, and being baptized by John — Jesus also was baptized. He stood there in the midst of the waters of the Jordan, as Joshua once stood in the midst of the waters, so that Israel could pass through; and so do you now pass through with Him.
He takes His stand with sinners. He numbers Himself with transgressors. He is in the water with you, so that His suffering and death, His Sacrifice, His humbleness, His obedience, His faith — all of these are for you. He does all that He does on your behalf, for your Life and your Salvation.
He humbles Himself in this way, even to His death upon the Cross, in order to cover your shame with His honor. He takes your shame upon Himself, so that His honor becomes yours. You were naked, so He strips Himself and dresses you; He is naked on the Cross, that you might be clothed in His righteousness. You were hungry, so He goes without to feed you. You were a stranger and an alien, a nobody with no name, and you had no people, you had no home. So He made Himself a stranger, with no place of His own to lay His head. He made Himself an outcast, in order to give you His own room in the Father’s House — so that you may call His Father’s House your Home; that you should have a place and a Family, and that you should know Love and not be forgotten.
He covers your sin and shame with His holiness and righteousness, and He glorifies you with His own Glory; for His faithfulness is reckoned to you as righteousness. All that Jesus has done right, by the Father’s Word you have now done right. I don’t mean that you try harder and do better. And I don’t mean that you have done better, or that you mean well, or that you think about things differently now. I mean that everything Christ has done is now yours. His Righteousness is yours, because it is reckoned to you, it is credited to you. This is the “grade” that God gives you: A+
There is nothing lacking in your standing before the Lord your God; for the very One who died for you, bearing all your sins, is risen from the dead and highly exalted by God, and in Him you also are raised from the dead and highly exalted by God. And you are named with His Name — yes, that very Name which is above every other name, that is the Name with which God has named you, and that is the Name which you now bear as a Christian, as one who is baptized into Christ Jesus.
As God the Father vindicated His righteous and faithful Servant, Christ Jesus, so has He vindicated you in Him. All the accusations of your enemies are silenced. All the accusations of Satan against you are silenced. All the accusations of God’s own Law are silenced. God Himself has vindicated you. Who, then, will contend with you? Let them make their case — it is thrown out of court.
Through the waters of your Holy Baptism you follow Jesus up to Jerusalem, and you pass through His death into Life with Him — into the Most Holy Place, the Inner Sanctum, the Holy of Holies, the very Bosom of the Father. The Holy of Holies not made with hands but eternal in the heavens, that is where you go and enter in with Jesus — unto the Passover Feast of God. How the Lord has longed to eat this Feast with you! And He has made it so.
That is why He is among you, even now, as One who serves, who bids you to recline at His Table. Though He is the Greatest, He demonstrates His greatness by girding Himself to serve you, by stretching out His hand to feed you, and by pouring out His Cup to give you drink.
You know the Way. You know how to find that Feast. You know how to enter in. Your Savior, Christ Jesus, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and you come to the Father by and with Him. And as it is, the same instructions that He gave to His disciples then, are also good instructions for you: Find the man with the pitcher of water, and follow him to where he leads — to the Upper Room — that is the place for the Great Supper, the true Passover of the Lamb of God.
You know what that pitcher of water is for. It has already cleansed you by the Word and Spirit of God in Holy Baptism. There the Spirit Himself was poured out upon you generously through Jesus Christ your Savior. There God the Father named you, and there you were marked with the sign of the Cross as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified. So it is that you are already clean, because you are baptized into Him. But that same pitcher of water is now poured out, as it were, so that Christ Jesus might wash your feet with Holy Absolution; that all the dirt and dust and grime that accumulates in your body and soul, heart, mind, and spirit, as you go about your days in the world, should likewise be washed away, freely cleansed by waters that flow with the very Blood of Christ.
That man whom Christ has sent with the pitcher of water leads you here to the Upper Room. And here is the Table at which the Lord invites you to recline. Here is where He serves you with His Body and His Blood. Here, then, bend your knees and confess His holy Name. Or, if your knees won’t bend in this life, know that in the Resurrection they will. And whether you can bend the knee or not, bow your heart, bow your mind, and bow your spirit before Him who is your Savior.
Do not be afraid to confess His Name; not only here among your friends and fellow Christians, but in that place where God has put you in the world, wherever He has stationed you in this life.
Bow before the Lord Jesus and confess His Name, not as though you must appease Him. There is no wrath in Him, but only mercy for you. The Son of Man has not come to condemn the world, but that you might be saved through Him. So, too, bend the knee and confess His Name, not as though you must curry His favor by stroking His “ego,” but because He freely and fully forgives you all your sins by the Ministry of His Gospel. So does He justify you by His grace and save you from death and the grave. In Him is your Life and your Salvation. That is why you worship Him.
Offer Him the sacrifice of thanksgiving because He gives you all good things. There is nothing else for you to give to Him except thanks. He does not require you to pay for your sins with your body and life. But here is the Fat Portion of His Sacrifice, His holy Body, given for you. And here is the choice Wine of His Drink Offering, His own holy and precious Blood, poured out for you. For He, the true God in the Flesh, has made the Sacrifice, and now He gives Himself to you.
Here at His Table He serves you with His Word of the Gospel, His forgiveness of all your sins. And here at His Table He gives you His Spirit by feeding you with Spiritual Food, which is your Meat and Drink indeed. And here at His Table, in His Supper, is where and how He remembers you in His Kingdom. That is what it means to do this in “remembrance” of Him. It is not so much that you gird up your mind and your memory to think about Jesus, but that He remembers you by feeding you and forgiving you. So does He make His Paradise right here with you, by His grace.
Come on up to His Feast, therefore, here at His Altar in His House, and find your hiding place and your Sabbath Rest in the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God, both now and forever.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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