Led by His Word to the Body of Jesus

There is the truth of the matter, in accordance with all the Holy Scriptures, that by His Cross and Passion, by His holy, precious Blood, and by His innocent suffering and death, the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed you from sin, death, the devil, and hell forever and forevermore.

And yet, for this present time, there is also what you see and feel and experience in the world, in your body and life on earth, which is often full of sadness, disappointment, sickness, and suffering of various kinds, the pervasiveness of sin, and the constant press of death upon your mortal flesh.

All around you, everywhere you look, bombarding your senses from the internet and elsewhere, and right up in your face, what you perceive is only the Cross and not the Resurrection. You have heard about the empty tomb, which is intriguing and perplexing, but the risen Jesus you do not see.

The Body of Jesus is missing. In the Gospel According to St. Luke the risen Lord Jesus makes no immediate appearance on Easter Sunday morning. You’re left wondering and waiting instead.

He has vanished from your sight, and your eyes are prevented from seeing Him. Even when He is standing right in front of you or walking right alongside of you, He is hidden from your eyes and unrecognizable. Your intellect and knowledge are unable to fathom the mystery of His presence.

He has acted as though He were moving on and leaving you behind. All the good news of Easter notwithstanding, it seems that your day in the sun is over and done; that the night must be at hand, as the darkness of death settles upon you and threatens to drag you down into its deep despair.

But, O foolish one, so slow of heart to believe the Word that God has spoken to you by His Son!

The Cross and suffering are not your defeat, but the Victory of God in Christ and the exercise of His divine Glory for your salvation from sin, death, and hell. He has redeemed you by His Cross!

Not only that, but in the speaking of His Gospel — in the Word of His Cross, and in the promise of His Resurrection — the crucified and risen Lord Jesus is close at hand. For by His Word and with His Holy Spirit He draws near to walk the hard road with you, and to abide with you here.

So, repent of your despair and unbelief. Believe the Gospel, and receive the gifts of Christ Jesus.

Learn to pray as He has taught you, with all boldness and confidence in Him. Not only when it all seems rosy, right, and good, but all the more so when it does not. Heed not your senses, nor trust your own experience, knowledge, and wisdom, but hear and believe the Word of the Lord Jesus.

Call upon Him in every trouble. Pray, praise, and give thanks to His Name, even before you have seen the evidence of His rescue and redemption. It is sure and certain that, not only will He hear and answer your prayer, but that He is already aware of your need and is already acting to shine the light of His mercy upon you, to give you life instead of death, and to raise you up in Himself.

Only bear in mind that He enters into His Glory by the way of the Cross, and that He brings you into Glory with Himself by the fruits and benefits of His Cross. He works repentance in you by His Cross and Passion, and He brings you from unbelief to faith by the forgiveness of His Cross.

Although He comes to you by this way and means — and as scary as the Cross truly is when you hear that your fellow Christians in the world, in these gray and latter days, are being shot, cut down, and put to death for bearing that same fair Name which you also bear as a disciple of Christ Jesus — nevertheless, pray that He would remain with you here in His Church under the Cross.

Pray, not with doubts and fears, but in the faith and confidence of His Resurrection from the dead. Despite appearances and experiences to the contrary, He is a very present help in time of trouble. He is here with His Cross, not to make things worse, but to save you. Not to hurt, but to heal you.

We follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before us on the Road to Emmaus. We have invited the Lord Jesus to come and be our guest, to enter this house that our mothers and fathers in the faith have built, which we now care for and support with our dollars, time, and efforts. We call on the Name of the Lord and ask Him to abide with us here on the corner of Milton & Dale.

Yet, here we find ourselves in His House, as guests at His Table, and that He is our gracious Host, our divine Waiter, and the Banquet itself, which He has prepared and spreads before us in love.

Here is where Jesus is found. Here is His Body, missing from the empty tomb but given in the Breaking of the Bread. This is where the disciples of Jesus are gathered by His Word and Spirit from all the highways and byways of the world — with all their sins and griefs and sorrows, with all their baggage, quirks, and idiosyncracies — to recline at His Table, to be served by His hand.

This is where and how He reveals and gives Himself to you. Not yet to your eyes, but to your heart and mind and mouth, so that you should here behold Him at His Altar by faith and not by sight.

He is not playing tricks on you or teasing you. This is not cat-and-mouse or hide-and-go-seek. He strengthens your faith and feeds you by His Cross, in order to give you Life in both body and soul by His own Resurrection. So do you enter by His grace into the Glory of God in Christ Jesus.

His Word declares the Truth, and by His Word and Spirit He opens your ears and eyes, your heart and mind, your lips and tongue to receive it, to believe it, and to confess it in this hostile world.

This Blood which He pours out for you to drink has redeemed you from all wickedness and evil; and this Body which He gives you to eat has conquered death and the devil. See here how He loves you, and rejoice in His Salvation. As He is risen indeed, so do you also live forever in Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Word of Christ Brings You Home to His Body

Disciples of Emmaus, you know the things that have happened in these days, the things concerning Jesus Christ of Nazareth, His Cross and Passion and His Resurrection from the dead. By His Cross He has redeemed you, forgiven all your sins, and conquered the power that death held over you. And in His Resurrection He has opened up heaven and eternal Life to you and to all who believe in Him, for which He has poured out His Spirit generously upon your body and your soul.

How is it, then, that you are still so often sad? Why should you be so angry or afraid of anything, discouraged or depressed, when Christ your Lord, the Son of God, has suffered these things for you and entered into His Glory? Knowing and confessing all that the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles have told you, why are you so foolish and slow of heart to believe the Gospel?

Here and now, in this body and life, you are making your way and muddling forward without a clear sense of where you really are or where you’re going. The days and hours fly by, seemingly relentless, but you are living in a time between, restless and uncertain on a journey to your true Home, which you can’t yet see or perceive. Your heart, mind, and spirit are tossed about by the turmoil of this perishing world, and you are torn between death and life, between sin and faith, and between what you can and cannot see with your eyes. You are caught between earth and heaven.

Here your senses too easily trick you and fool you, so that earthly things seem powerful, glorious, and heavenly, whereas heavenly things seem ghostly, ghastly, and hard to comprehend or bear.

You live by faith and not by sight along the way, and as such, your only real recourse is the Word of God: The Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles; the Holy Gospel of your Lord Jesus Christ, as written by His Holy Evangelists; and the Word of Christ Himself, the Word made Flesh.

Avail yourself of that Word. Speak it to your neighbor, and ask that it be spoken to you. Confess it and pray it as you go about your days, as you rise up in the morning, and as you go to bed again each night. In particular, give attention to the preaching of the Gospel, the forgiveness of your sins.

I realize that it can seem pointless and useless to “talk about Jesus” in the face of all the hurts and disappointments that wear you out and weigh you down. If that sounds impious to say, or even blasphemous, still, you know that it can feel that way, and that you often live as though it were so.

Consider how easily you are caught up in the maelstrom of this world with all of its anxieties and countless distractions. Think about your daily routines, and how the duties and demands of your job, your classes, your house and home, your family, and all your neighbors roundabout, consume your attention and your energies, so that you end up living and acting as though the Resurrection never happened or did not matter — even now, when Holy Week has ushered you into Easter!

There are those days when you can barely keep yourself going, one foot in front of the other, and you may not feel like talking anymore, and you really don’t want to hear it, not even about Jesus. That’s one of the main reasons that you dare not go it alone, lest you spiral into a silence of the Word of God and give yourself over to the constant buzz, nauseating static, and deadly white noise of your own inner dialogue, which does not believe but doubts and denies the Word of the Lord.

In spite of your nagging and persistent sadness, and no matter what you may be thinking or feeling at any given point, it is in the speaking of His Word — in the conversation about Jesus — that the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Himself draws near and travels right along with you. In and with His Word, by and with His Holy Spirit, He is actively present and opens the Scriptures to you.

He opens up your ears to hear, and He opens up your heart and mind to comprehend and believe the Holy Gospel — to hear and receive the forgiveness of all your sins, which is the solution to all your doubts and fears, the remedy to every infirmity of your heart and mind, body, soul, and spirit.

What is more, it is by and with His Word of the Gospel that He brings you Home, that is, to your true Home, which is the household and family of God, the Body of Christ. On the surface it may appear that He is coming to be your guest, but then it quickly turns about that He is actually the Host who takes you in, and cares for you, and serves you at His Table with His own hand.

With His Word and Holy Spirit, in His own Body of flesh and blood, He comes to make His home with you here — in order to make a Home for you with Him — already now in His Church on earth, and so also in the resurrection of your body to the Life everlasting in the Kingdom of God.

Here then, at His Altar in His House, is the lavish Table at which He tenderly invites you to recline and take your rest, to receive and feast upon the Meal that He has prepared for you and for the many. He takes the bread, He gives thanks, and He gives to you what everyone is looking for and needs: Not the empty tomb, and not only the news and information of the Resurrection, but His own crucified and risen Body in the Breaking of the Bread, the Holy Communion of His Supper.

That is where the whole Christian Church on earth recognizes, receives, and worships her dear Lord Jesus Christ. And that is where you also are at home and at rest: In the Body of Christ Jesus.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

On the Way of the Cross to and from Emmaus with Christ Jesus

Every one of you knows what it’s like to get your hopes up, to anticipate good things, only to have your hopes and expectations dashed.  Whether it be at work, at home, or at school, with family and friends, in sports or politics, or in your plans for the future, you have known disappointments.

In any and all of those circumstances, at ground level your hopes are either in the Lord Jesus Christ or the idols of this world.  That is to say, whatever you rely upon, whatever you are counting on, and whatever you are living for, that is your god — and it will either be the one true God, Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, or one of any number of alternative false gods.

The tragic irony is that, whereas your idols may actually seem to be working just fine — up until the point when they can’t and won’t, when they are exposed for the empty and perishing posers they are — the Lord Jesus, hidden under the Cross in this fallen world, appears to be so helpless and hopeless and utterly useless, a huge disappointment, despite the potential He once showed.

So, then, what do you have to go on?  How shall you keep your bearings and chart your course?  You’ve heard the Word and promises of God, and you know the Story of Jesus.  So, now what?

Knowing what you know, and having heard what you have heard, you should understand and believe that the Glory of the Christ comes by the way of His Cross and suffering.  And that’s not just ancient history.  It is also your story as a disciple of Christ Jesus.  You also enter into the Glory of God in Christ — you share His Resurrection and His Life — by the way of His Cross and suffering.  Has He not told you ahead of time that it must be so, and what the outcome will be?

That’s not just wishful thinking or hoping for the best.  It is the faithfulness of the Lord your God, who loves you, and it is His redemption of your life and the whole world from sin, death, and hell.

It is the story of the Gospel, which you hear and receive in a variety of ways because the Lord is exceedingly rich in His grace toward you.  And it is the story that you have been taught to confess with the whole Church in the Creed — the story of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, which is also the story of your Baptism in His Name and your daily dying and rising with Him.

Why, then, are you surprised by the Cross and suffering, and why do you act as though something strange were happening to you, and as though the story has come to a very sad and tragic ending?

How is it, after the events of the past few days, that you would now return to your home and family and resume your job and normal routines, living and acting as though the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified for nothing, and as though He were not risen from the dead?  Everything has happened just as He said, in fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures, which always have been all about Him.

In truth, your disappointment and discouragement also belong to the Cross that is laid upon you for the sake of putting the old Adam in you to death.  Not that you should despair, but that the Lord might raise you up from your sin and death to forgiveness, faith, and life in Him by His Word of the Gospel.   He thereby calls you to repentance and teaches you to fix your hopes on Him, to find Him and rely on Him in the fruits of His Sacrifice.  And so it is that, by the ways and means of His Cross, He raises you up from the dust of the earth to share in the Glory of His Resurrection.

The Cross is not a last-minute gamble or a last-ditch effort; it’s not even a change in the game plan.  It is the very thing that God the Lord determined from the beginning, and even from before the foundation of the world.  He created all things in love, and He created Man in His Image and Likeness, fully aware that He would accomplish His purposes by the Cross and Passion of Christ.

It is not for you to ferret out the unrevealed mysteries of God, nor to comprehend the mysteries of time and eternity in the mind of God.  You are given simply to hear and believe, to comprehend and confess the revealed Mysteries of God in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles.  For all things are fulfilled in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, for the comforting of your conscience, for the strengthening of your faith, and for the raising of your body at the last unto the Life everlasting of your body and soul in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So, consider for now the story of Moses, whom the Lord called, ordained, and sent to redeem His people Israel from Egypt.  He also suffered with and for the people, not coincidentally, but as a participation in the sufferings of the Christ who was to come, the promised Seed of Abraham.

With Moses, too, there was so much promise, so much hope at first, only to be met with a series of disappointments and setbacks.  The oppression of Pharaoh and the sufferings of the people actually increased and got worse instead of better.  There were ups and downs, and back and forth, first a “yes,” then yet another “no.”  Until the final Plague seemed so decisive.  But even then, what did that require?  The death of the firstborn son, or the sacrifice of the Lamb in place of the son!  Always the Lord is preaching that the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, would be the sacrificial Lamb.

As the people do come out of Egypt, so excited to be on their way to freedom, there is yet again another setback, as Pharaoh and his army, his chariots and horsemen begin to chase them down.

Then Israel is caught between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, with seemingly no way out — that they might learn to fear, love, and trust in God, to call upon His Name, and thus to find true Peace and Sabbath Rest in Him alone.  So, too, when you are caught between a rock and a hard place in your Exodus from death into life, the Lord calls you to live and rest in the Liturgy of Christ Jesus.

As you have heard over these past few days, the Lord God brought His Israel safely through the waters of the Red Sea, and He utterly drowned and defeated the entire Egyptian army in the same waters.  And as surely as He rescued His people then and brought them out of slavery into freedom, so has He brought you through the waters of your Holy Baptism into His Holy Christian Church.

But of course, Israel winds up in a desert wilderness, with no water to drink and no food to eat, and they would sooner go back to slavery in Egypt than to waste away and die out there in the wild.  Back and forth the pendulum swings, getting their hopes up, then dashing them into the ground.

But it never is out of the Lord’s hands.  He is always calling them to repentance and faith, always pointing them to Christ.  Despite their grumbling complaints, He sustains them with miraculous water from the Rock and with miraculous Bread from heaven, anticipating the One who was to come, who would give Himself over to death and give His Body to eat and His Blood to drink.

And so it goes.  Mt. Sinai is threatening, even deadly, and frightening.  And after God seals His Covenant with Israel through Moses — by way of more sacrifice and more blood — the Prophet disappears into the thunder and lightning, fire and smoke at the top of the Mountain for forty days and forty nights.  So the people once more give up hope, and make a golden idol for themselves, and party themselves into utter debauchery.  Over and over again, they are tested and tried; they fall short and fail; they are disciplined unto repentance; they call upon the Lord and are saved; and before long they rebel against the Lord and against His servant Moses.  On and on and on it goes.

Was it not necessary, then, for the Christ to suffer all these things, and thus to enter into His Glory through suffering?  Indeed, He suffers with and for His people, bearing their burdens and the assaults and accusations of their enemies.  And so does He also suffer their contempt and idolatry and their sins against Him.  He takes it all upon Himself and willingly suffers for their redemption.

He is both the Firstborn Son and the Passover Lamb who is given and sacrificed in place of all the other firstborn sons.  He is the Servant of the Lord who opens the way through the deadly waters by the wood of His Cross.  He is the Rock who is pierced to pour out living water and cleansing blood from His side for the cleansing and refreshment of His people.  He is the true Manna from heaven, the Bread of immortality, who feeds His people with Himself from the Tree of the Cross.  He is the holy Sacrifice whose Blood is the New Covenant of God with His people.  And He is the One who ascends the Mountain of God by way of His Cross and Passion, suffering the judgment of the Law against your sins, but also keeping and fulfilling the entire Law for your salvation.

All of this — and the entire Old Testament — the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled in the very events that His Church has remembered with thanksgiving and celebrated in solemn faith over these past eight days — by the atoning Sacrifice of His Cross and in His mighty Resurrection from the dead.

And it might seem easy enough, in retrospect, to affirm, to believe, and to confess all of that now, so far as He is concerned.  He has risen, just as He said.  He is not dead but alive forevermore.

Which is fine and good for Him.  But it is still so hard, if not impossible, for you to see and believe the promise of His Resurrection in yourself, in your own family, and in the desert wilderness of your life on earth.  Here it seems that all your hopes are routinely being dashed on a daily basis.  And even though you do “know better,” your foolish and sinful heart still doubts and is so sad.

That is how it is with you.  And yet, your dear Lord Jesus is so patient and so kind, and even as He gently chides you — as He calls you to repentance and faith — He is already acting to help you.

It is important to note that your conversation and discussion of the Holy Gospel is not pointless or empty, even when you’re still at such a loss and don’t really know or understand what you’re talking about.  For in that speaking of His Story, Christ Jesus Himself draws near and goes with you; and then He also takes that Story into His own hands, and He leads you home by His Word.

He opens the Scriptures to you.  And He opens, not only your ears to hear, but also your mind and your heart to comprehend and to believe the Scriptures and all that His Prophets and Apostles have written.  He does so by the forgiveness of all your sins and by all that goes with His forgiveness.

He does use the Cross, for that is the very heart of His Story.  So it is that your eyes are prevented from seeing Him, and He even acts as though He were going to continue on His way without you.

But remember that the Cross is a means of repentance, which not only crucifies the old Adam in you, but also raises you up as a New Creation in Christ Jesus — alive by faith and living in love.

The Cross of Christ that is laid upon you teaches you to acknowledge and confess your sins, but it also teaches you to hope in His mercy and to pray.  It teaches you to ask the Lord Jesus to come and stay with you, which is of course the very thing that He has come to do for you in love.

You bring Him home with you, and you bring Him into your home and family, by the ongoing catechesis and confession of His Word.  And that journey of catechesis not only takes Jesus home with you, but it also brings you back “home” with Him.

It is by His Word, therefore, that you live to and from Emmaus with Jesus.  And not only that, but you live to and from Jerusalem, as did those first disciples of Emmaus who returned that very night to the city they had left behind.  All of which is to say that you live as a disciple of Christ Jesus from His Church and always back to His Church, to the gathering of disciples around the Apostolic doctrine and fellowship.  Not unlike St. Mary and St. Joseph, who returned to Jerusalem to find the Boy Jesus when they had left Him behind, as St. Luke records at the beginning of the Story.

Where, then, shall you find Him?  Have you not heard?  The One who is the true Passover, the true Manna, and the New Covenant, gives Himself to you, to eat and to drink, in the “Breaking of the Bread,” that is to say, in the Holy Communion.  You still can’t see Him with your eyes, but He reveals Himself and you recognize Him here in this Holy Supper at His Altar in His Church.

It is here that you find and receive His Body.  Not in the tomb, which is empty, but here at His Table in His House, where He is not your Guest, but you are His, and He is your gracious Host.  More than that, He is your Meat and Drink indeed, by whom you live both now and forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now You See Him Where You Don't

The path that you are set upon may be a lonely one.  All the more so if it is a way that you have chosen for yourself.  But you are not alone.  The Lord has not lost sight of you, even if you are not able to see Him.  For one thing, you have companions on the journey to share the story of Jesus with you.  And by and with this very Word, Christ Jesus Himself draws near and goes with you.

He is the One who, by His Word and Spirit, opens the Scriptures to you; who opens your mind to comprehend and your heart to believe His Gospel; who opens Himself to you in His Supper, and opens you to Himself, to recognize and receive Him to yourself in the Breaking of the Bread.

He brings you into His Glory by the way and means of His Cross and Passion.  Not only by the facts of the matter, but by the catechesis of the Cross itself, which crucifies and buries you with Christ Jesus, in order to raise you up with Him in His own Resurrection from the dead.

This catechesis of the Cross continues all the way, even for those who already “know it all,” who already confess the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth.  It is an ongoing journey with this same Jesus who was crucified.  And it puts you to death each day, not for destruction, but for repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins, and for newness of life in Him who is not dead but living.

So does it lead you and bring you to the Place that Christ has prepared and made ready for you.

Well, that sure sounds good, doesn’t it?  But be forewarned, and bear in mind that on this Way of Life your eyes are prevented from recognizing Him.  For even in the Resurrection, His Glory is that of the Crucified One.  He is the One whom God has raised from the dead and made both Lord and Christ.  Indeed, He has entered into this divine Glory through His suffering of all these things.

But you do not perceive or recognize Him in your difficult and needy neighbor, for example.  Nor do you see Him in your own suffering, hurt, and pain, because you are not able to see the Glory of His Cross even as it is now revealed in the preaching of His Resurrection.  Instead, you suffer disappointments and sadness, the crushing of your hopes and expectations.  In this way the Cross of Christ brings to light your foolish ignorance, and it exposes your stubborn slowness of heart.

So it is that your perceptions, interpretations, and conclusions are all challenged, contradicted, crucified, put to death, and buried.

After all, the Lord Jesus acts as though He were going farther.  He plays a bit of cat-and-mouse, or so it seems at least.  His presence and His providence are elusive, especially as the Cross is constantly calling a halt to your progress and to all of your grand plans.  Just when it seems that the answer is finally within reach, your goals in sight, the prize at hand, it all slips away from you.

He’s actually not teasing you, not really.  He’s teaching you to live by faith, and teaching you to pray, to call upon His Name.  He’s also training you to exercise love for your neighbor, rather than focusing on your own hurts and needs and sorrows; that you should love and serve Christ Jesus, precisely under the Cross, with Glory not earthly but divine, by loving and serving and caring for the widows and orphans and strangers set upon your path, and for the Lazarus laid at your gate; that you should do so in the confidence of the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting.

In the meantime, though, He vanishes from your sight.  For it is not yet with your eyes that you are given to see and know Him.  It is rather in the darkness that you “see” Him by faith, by the Light of His Word, hidden in the Breaking of the Bread, in the distribution of His Body and His Blood.

Now you see Him where you don’t, that is, in the Gospel of His Cross, in the Fruits of His Passion.  At the Font and at the Altar, at His Table in His House, in the Holy Communion of His Church on earth.  Not by the simple knowledge of the facts, but by faith and trust in the Word and promises of this Lord Jesus Christ.  Not simply news and information, but the Body of Jesus, crucified and risen, given and poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  For Life.

He is with you in these ways and means of His Gospel, not simply as a companion on your journey, but as your Redeemer, who brings you with Himself into the Resurrection of the Body and the Life everlasting.  He brings you to the portal that leads to bliss untold, that is, to the portal of His Cross.

Take heart, therefore.  At this very Hour, in the Breaking of the Bread, you have communion with Him who loves you, and so also with each other in Him.  Here and now you belong to His Body, the Church, even as He gives to you His own Body to eat.  Here resides your fellowship in Christ, whereby you live both to and from His Altar into all times and places, wherever you may roam.

Thus and thereby do you rise with Him and enter into the Glory of His true Jerusalem, already in His Church on earth, as surely as it is established for you in the heavenly places.  Not in spite of the Cross, but in, with, and under the Cross, by the Word of the Cross, in the Fruits of the Cross.

His crucified and risen Body and His holy, precious Blood are the Firstfruits of the Resurrection and of the New Creation, your spiritual Food for the journey, and the Meat and Drink indeed of the Feast which has no end.  The promise is for you and for your children, and for all whom the Lord Jesus will call to Himself, even from the farthest ends of the earth, unto the close of the age.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

To and From Emmaus with Jesus

Disciples of Emmaus, you all know what it is like to get your hopes up, only to have them dashed.  Whether it be at work, at home, or at school, in your friendships, in sports or politics, or in the plans that you have made for the future of your family.

Actually, in any and all of these areas of life, your hopes are either in the Lord Jesus Christ, or they are in the idols of this world.  That is to say, whatever you rely upon, whatever you are counting on, and whatever you are living for, that is your god — and it will either be the one true God, Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, or one of the pantheon of false god alternatives.

The irony is that your idols may appear to be working for a while, right up until the time when they can’t and won’t, when they are exposed for the empty and perishing posers they are.  Whereas the Lord Jesus Christ, hidden under the Cross in this fallen world, appears to be helpless and hopeless and utterly useless — a huge disappointment — despite the promise He once showed.

But, now, what do you have to go on?  And what are you going to do about it?  You have heard the Word and promises of God, and now you know the rest of the story.  So, what say you?

Knowing what you know, and having heard what you have heard, you should understand and believe that the Glory of the Christ comes by the way of His Cross and suffering.  And that’s not just ancient history.  It is also your story as a disciple of Christ Jesus.  You also enter into the Glory of God in Christ — you share His Resurrection and His Life — by the way of His Cross and suffering.  Has He not told you ahead of time that it must be so, and what the outcome will be?

This is not about wishful thinking or hoping for the best, but about the faithfulness of the Lord your God, who loves you, and His redemption of you and all His people from sin and death.

It is the story of the Gospel, which you hear and receive in so many ways, because God is so exceedingly rich in His grace toward you.  And it is the story that you have been taught to confess with the whole Church in the Creed: The story of Christ Jesus, of His Cross and Resurrection; which is also the story of your Baptism into Christ, and of your daily dying and rising with Him.

So why do you seem so surprised by the Cross and suffering, and act as though something strange were happening to you, and as though the story were all over, with a very sad ending indeed?

And how is it, after the events of these past several days, that you could now return to your home and family, to your job and to your every day routines, as though the Lord Jesus Christ had been crucified for nothing, and as though He had not risen from the dead?  Even though everything has happened just as He said, and according to the Scriptures, which have always been all about Him.

In truth, your disappointments and discouragements are also part of the Cross that is now laid upon you, in order to put the old Adam in you to death.  Not to end in despair, but to raise you up by faith in the Gospel, as the Lord calls you to repentance and teaches you to fix your hope on Him, to find Him and rely on Him in the fruits of His Sacrifice.  So that, by the ways and means of His Cross, He would raise you up from death and the grave to share in His Resurrection and His Life.

The Cross is not a last-minute gamble or a last-ditch effort; it’s not even a change in the game plan, but the very thing that God the Lord has determined from the beginning, and even from before the foundation of the world.  He created all things in love, and He created Man in His Image and Likeness, fully aware that He would accomplish His purposes by the Cross and Passion of Christ.

Now, it is not for you to ferret out the unrevealed mysteries of God, nor for you to comprehend the mysteries of time and eternity in the mind of God.  But you are given simply to hear and believe, to comprehend and confess the revealed Mysteries of God in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles.  All things are fulfilled in Him for the forgiveness of your sins, for the comforting of your conscience, for the strengthening of your faith, and for the raising of your body at the last unto the life everlasting of your body and soul in fellowship with the Holy Trinity.

So, consider for now the story of Moses, whom the Lord called, ordained, and sent to redeem His people Israel from Egypt.  He also suffered with and for the people, not coincidentally, but as a participation in the sufferings of the Christ who was to come, the promised Seed of Abraham.

With Moses, too, there was so much promise, so much hope at first, only to be met with a series of disappointments and setbacks.  The oppression of Pharaoh and the sufferings of the people actually increased and got worse instead of better.  There were ups and downs, and back and forth, first a “yes,” then yet another “no.”  Until the final Plague seemed so decisive.  But even then, what did that require?  The death of the firstborn son, or the sacrifice of the Lamb in place of the son!  Always the Lord is preaching that the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, would be the sacrificial Lamb.

As the people do come out of Egypt, so excited to be on their way to freedom, yet again there is an apparent setback, as Pharaoh and his army, his chariots and horsemen, begin to chase them down.  Then Israel is caught between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, with seemingly no way out; that they should learn to fear, love, and trust in God, to call upon His Name, and to rest in Him.  So, too, when you are caught between a rock and a hard place in your Exodus from death into life.

Well, you know, as we have heard over the past few days, that God brought them safely through the waters of the Red Sea, and that He utterly drowned and defeated the entire Egyptian army in those same waters.  Just as He has brought you through the waters of your Holy Baptism into His Holy Christian Church, so did He rescue His people and bring them out of slavery into freedom.

But of course, they ended up in a desert wilderness, with no water to drink and no food to eat, and they would sooner go back to slavery in Egypt than to waste away and die out there in the wild.  Back and forth the pendulum swings, raising their hopes and then dashing them into the ground.

It never is out of the Lord’s hands, who is always calling them to repentance and faith, and always pointing them to Christ.  Thus, in spite of their grumbling complaints, He fed them with miraculous water from the Rock and with miraculous Bread from heaven, anticipating the One who has now come, who has given Himself into death, who gives to you His Body to eat and His Blood to drink.

And so it goes.  Mt. Sinai is threatening, even deadly, and frightening.  And after God seals His Covenant with Israel through Moses — by way of more sacrifice, and more blood — the Prophet disappears into the thunder and lightning, fire and smoke at the top of the Mountain for forty days and forty nights.  So the people once more give up hope, and make a golden idol for themselves, and party themselves into utter debauchery.  Over and over again, they are tested and tried; they fall short and fail; they are disciplined unto repentance; they call upon the Lord and are saved; and before long they rebel against the Lord and against His servant Moses.  On and on and on it goes.

Was it not necessary, then, for the Christ to suffer all these things, and thus to enter into His Glory through suffering?  Because He suffers with and for His people, bearing their burdens and the assaults and accusations of their enemies.  But so does He also suffer their contempt and idolatry and their sins against Him.  He takes it all upon Himself and willingly suffers for their redemption.

He is both the Firstborn Son and the Passover Lamb who is given and sacrificed in place of all the other firstborn sons.  He is the Servant of the Lord who opens the way through the deadly waters by the wood of His Cross.  He is the Rock who is cleaved to pour out living water and cleansing blood from His side for the cleansing and refreshment of His people.  He is the true Manna from heaven, the Bread of immortality, who feeds His people with Himself from the Tree of the Cross.  He is the holy Sacrifice whose blood is the New Covenant of God with His people.  And He is the One who ascends the Mountain of God by way of His Cross and Passion, suffering the judgment of the Law against your sins, but also keeping and fulfilling the entire Law for your salvation.

All of this, and the entire Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled in the very events that His Church has remembered with thanksgiving and celebrated in solemn faith over these past eight days — by the atoning Sacrifice of His Cross and in His mighty Resurrection from the dead.

And it might seem easy enough, in retrospect, to affirm, to believe, and to confess all of that now, so far as He is concerned.  He has risen, just as He said.  He is not dead, but alive forevermore.

Well, good for Him!  Right?  But it is still so hard, if not impossible, for you to see and to believe the promise of His Resurrection in yourself, in your own family, and in the desert wilderness of your life on earth.  Here, it seems, all of your hopes are routinely being dashed on a daily basis.  And even though you do “know better,” your foolish and sinful heart still doubts and is so sad.

That is how it is with you.  And yet, your dear Lord Jesus is so patient and so kind, so that, even as He gently chides you, as He calls you to repentance and faith, He is already acting to help you.

One thing to note, dear Christian, is that your conversation and discussion of the Holy Gospel is not pointless or empty.  For in that story of Christ Jesus, He Himself draws near and goes with you; and then He actually takes the story into His own hands, and He leads you home by His Word.

He opens the Scriptures to you.  And He opens, not only your ears to hear, but also your mind and your heart to comprehend and to believe the Scriptures and all that His Prophets and Apostles have preached.  He does it by the forgiveness of all your sins, and by all that goes with His forgiveness.

He does use the Cross, for that is the very heart of His story.  So it is that your eyes are prevented from seeing Him, and He even acts as though He were going to continue on His way without you.

But remember that the Cross is a means of repentance, which not only crucifies the old Adam in you, but also raises you up as a New Creation in Christ Jesus — alive by faith and living in love.

The Cross of Christ that is laid upon you teaches you to acknowledge and confess your sins, but it also teaches you to hope in His mercy, and to pray.  It teaches you to ask the Lord Jesus to come and stay with you, which is of course the very thing that He has come to do for you in love.

You bring Him home with you, and you bring Him into your home and family, by the ongoing catechesis and confession of His Word.  And that journey of catechesis not only takes Jesus home with you, but it also brings you back “home” with Him.

Thus, by His Word, you live to and from Emmaus with Jesus.  And not only that, but you live to and from Jerusalem, as did those first disciples of Emmaus, who returned that very night to the city they had left behind.  Which is to say, in either case, that you live as a disciple from the Church and always back to the Church, to the gathering of disciples around the Apostolic doctrine and fellowship.  Just like St. Mary and St. Joseph, who returned to Jerusalem to find the Boy Jesus when He had been lost to them, way back at the beginning of St. Luke’s Holy Gospel.

Where, then, shall you find Him?  Have you not heard?  The One who is the true Passover, the true Manna, and the New Covenant, gives Himself to you, to eat and to drink, in the “Breaking of the Bread,” that is to say, in the Holy Communion.  You still can’t see Him with your eyes, but He reveals Himself and you recognize Him here in this Holy Supper at His Altar in His Church.

It is here that you find and receive His Body.  Not in the tomb, which is empty, but here at His Table in His House, where He is not your Guest, but you are His, and He is your gracious Host.  Not only that, but He is your Meat and Drink indeed, by which you live, now and forevermore.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen