The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus

The genesis of the flesh is flesh.  The genesis of the Spirit is spirit.  But the distinction here is not between tangible and intangible things, nor between bodies of flesh and disembodied spirits.  The contrast is rather between that which bears the Spirit of God and that which does not.

Flesh that is filled with the Spirit of God is alive and living; whereas there are plenty of spiritual things that are contrary to the Word of God and therefore devoid of His Spirit and His Life.

By the same token, flesh apart from the Spirit of God is already in the process of dying, returning to the dust whence it was taken.  So shall it decay, disintegrate, and be destroyed.  It goes down to Sheol, because flesh that does not bear and live by the Spirit of God is idolatrous and covetous.  Such flesh hungers, not for the true and holy God, but for flesh like itself.  It is cannibalistic, and in its voracious and insatiable consumption it is consumed and comes to an end.

Though flesh attempts to feed upon itself, it is utterly unable to sustain itself.  It cannot survive on its own resources, nor will it manage to live for long on its own terms.  Flesh cannot save itself.

Without the Spirit of God, all flesh, including yours, is blind and in the dark, lost in a permanent nighttime of ignorance and unbelief.  It cannot see God, know God, believe in God, or go to Him.  It cannot ascend into heaven, nor can it enter the Kingdom of God.

More to the point, you are not able to know God or believe in Him by way of your own fallen flesh.  You are not capable of discerning or knowing heavenly things, far less can you get into heaven, by any way or means of your fallen flesh.  Without the Spirit of God, your flesh is undone.

But if your fallen flesh is confronted by the Holy, Holy, Holy God — apart from His Gospel — then you are undone all the more quickly, because you are not holy, you are sinful and unclean.

Therefore, God the Father sent His only-begotten Son into the world, in Love, in order to save the world through Him — in order to grant eternal Life to those, like you, who have not known Him.

As in the beginning, the Father speaks His Word into the darkness; and His Word is Light and Life and Love for the whole of His creation, because He speaks to you by His Son, Christ Jesus.

So it is that you see the Kingdom of God in Him, the Son of Man, who has descended from heaven for you and your salvation.  In Him, God has become Man, and the Word has become true Flesh.

How so?  It is by the Spirit of God, who overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary and conceived the Son of God in her womb, whereby He became flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.

The New Adam was thus conceived and born of a New Eve by the grace of God, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And in the Flesh of Christ Jesus the fall into sin and the curse of death are reversed.

Accordingly, the Signs that He does — like turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, and other such Signs of His divine Glory in the Flesh — are Signs of the New Creation in His Body.  This is the dawning of the eternal Eighth Day, the blooming of a brand new Paradise, and the New Birth of Mankind.  Jesus works and accomplishes all of this in Himself, but He does so for all of us and for our salvation, by the way and means of His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead.

He does it all for you, and He alone is able to do it.  For this New Birth is harder than the first; indeed, it is impossible for the flesh apart from the Spirit of God.  It is harder than the usual labor and delivery of fallen flesh.  It is harder than entering again into your mother’s womb when you are old, as it is harder than putting a camel through the eye of a needle.  For the birth pangs in this case are those of the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus, the suffering and death of the Son of God in His own Flesh, the shedding of His holy and precious Blood in Atonement for all of your sins.

Ironically, His descending into death and the grave — into Hades and Sheol — coincides with His being lifted up and His ascending; for He offers Himself up to the Father as the Sacrifice for the sins of the world, and He rises like sweet-smelling Incense in peace and reconciliation with God.

He has fully borne your sin and death in His own Flesh.  But His Father has received and accepted His Sacrifice.  His Father has raised Him up again from death to life.  And His Father has poured out the promised Holy Spirit upon Him — upon His Body, crucified and risen, and into His Flesh.

Consequently, His bodily Resurrection from the dead is the New Genesis — a new beginning — and He is the New Adam by whom all the children of God are born through His Church on earth.

It is the Holy Spirit who accomplishes this New Birth in you, by putting you to death and raising you to a new life in and with Christ Jesus.  That is what repentance is — being turned inside-out, being turned away from your sin and death to faith in Christ and His forgiveness of your sins.  By such faith you see and know God in Christ Jesus, and you live with God in Him forever.

The Spirit works the dying and rising of this New Birth and New Creation in your body and soul by the earthly Means of Grace, by the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the whole Ministry of the Gospel.  This is the Voice of the Spirit — this is the Sound of the “Wind,” which you can hear but cannot see — and it is by this Voice of the Gospel that the Spirit is actively present and at work with all His gifts and graces.

This Spirit of the Lord, this Author and Giver of Life, speaks by the cleansed lips of those who are called, ordained, and sent in the Name of Christ Jesus.  And in this way the Spirit is then breathed into man — into fallen flesh — through Holy Absolution.  You know that, right?  Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.”

And by this forgiveness of the Gospel, by this breathing of the Spirit into you, you are no longer dead and dying, but alive and living; you are not undone, but cleansed and healed and made new.

It is like the coal from the Altar of Incense — that little golden Altar in front of the Holy of Holies, where the Incense was burned in the presence of God, rising into heaven as the prayer of Israel — it is like that coal, which touched Isaiah’s lips and cleansed him from iniquity, so that he could go and preach the Word of the Lord to Israel, unto repentance and faith in the coming Christ Jesus.

And so it is that from the Cross, on which the Lord Jesus Christ has been offered up in death as an acceptable Sacrifice for you and all, and as a sweet-smelling Incense in the presence of God, a new and better “Coal” is now given, by which you are forgiven, that you might live with God in Peace.

From the Altar of His Cross the Lord Jesus touches your lips with His Body and His Blood, and by these Gifts you are forgiven all your sins, you are cleansed of all iniquity.  You shall not die but live.  And so shall you also speak the Name of the Lord your God, and call upon His Name, and praise His Holy Name in the midst of His Temple, within His Church on earth as it is in heaven.

By the whole Liturgy of the Gospel Christ the Crucified is being lifted up before you in this place — into your ears and into your mouth — unto faith and life in Him, in both your body and soul.

By your Holy Baptism in His Name, you are born again of water and the Holy Spirit.  You are put to death, crucified, and buried with Christ Jesus, and so raised with Him to newness of life.  Thus, you are a child of God in Christ, and you live as a child of God by grace through faith in Him.

As the Son of God was conceived and born of the Woman, in order to become true Man — and as He has risen from the dead, risen from the dust of the earth, the Firstborn from the dead, the First Fruits of the New Creation — so are you also born again from death to life, as a son of God in Christ Jesus, anointed by the Holy Spirit for everlasting Life with God the Father in Paradise.

You thus know the true and only God, not as a doctrinal abstraction, but as your own dear Father.  You know Him as your Father in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son, who is your Brother in the flesh and your Savior from sin and death.  And you know your God and Father in His Son by the Spirit whom He has given you by and with His Word, who breathes in you the very Life of God.

You know the Holy Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, here and now in this Holy Place, at this sacred Altar, sanctified by His Presence.  You know God in the hearing of His Gospel, His forgiveness of all your sins.  You know God in the eating of the Body of Christ Jesus, and you know Him in the drinking of His Blood.  For the Word and Flesh of Christ are Spirit and Life.

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

As the Words and Promises of God Declare

To be a disciple of Christ Jesus is to follow after Him in the Way that He has already gone before you, which is to say, in the Way of His Cross, in the hope and promise of His Resurrection and His Ascension to the Right Hand of His God and Father, where He ever lives as your High Priest.

As disciples are made by Holy Baptism in His Name and by the ongoing catechesis of His Word, so was the Lord Jesus Himself baptized for you and all people, for the repentance and forgiveness of the world, and for the fulfilling of all righteousness, so that you and all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve might be justified and saved from sin, death, and hell.

Just think of what the Baptism of Jesus signified and meant for Him.  In submitting to St. John’s “Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, including all of your sins of thought, word, and deed, every last one of them.  His Baptism did not make Him clean — He was already spotless, pure, and holy.  It rather saturated Him with all the dirt of fallen man, with all the filth and stench of sinful unbelief and disobedience.

He took upon Himself and bore in His own Body all your lying and cheating, your covetous lust, your cursing and dirty jokes, your laziness and negligence, your adultery and murder, your stealing, and your gossiping.  He took all of your sins — and every other sin from Adam to the close of the age — and He took responsibility for all of it, as though He alone were guilty, sinful, and unclean.

And His reward for this great work of divine and holy love was suffering and death.  Submitting to His Baptism meant committing Himself to be crucified, put to death, and buried.  Stepping into the water was, for Jesus, a return to the dust of the earth from which the first man had been taken.

For Christ Jesus as for you, His Baptism indicated that He should be drowned and die with all your sinful lusts and evil desires — in the place of your old Adam.

But that is not the whole significance of His Baptism.  For He also received the blessing of His Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit there in the waters of the Jordan River, as the Pledge and Promise that His Father would not abandon Him to the grave nor allow His Flesh to suffer decay, but would pour out the Spirit upon His crucified Body and raise Him again from the dust of the earth.  And this Word and promise He received in your place, as your Substitute and Savior.

Of course, the Father and the Holy Spirit and immortal Life belong to the Son of God from all eternity, according to His own divine nature.  But in the waters of His Baptism — as the true and perfect Man, yet voluntarily bearing the curse and consequence of sin — He received the blessing of the Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit as a pledge that in Him all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve would be redeemed and raised up in righteousness and holiness; that mortal flesh, after returning to the dust, would yet receive the Holy Spirit and rise up again to live forever.

Your dear Lord Jesus thus lived as you are called to live, that is, by faith in the Word and promise of His God and Father.  He proceeded from the waters of the Jordan in that holy faith, in love for His Father and in love for you and for all His neighbors of all times and places.  Against the devil’s temptations, He relied on God the Father’s sure and certain Word: “You are My beloved Son.”

In such faith and confidence He lived faithfully within His own vocation, and He carried out the works of love that belonged to His own office and station in life.  He honored His father and mother and submitted to them.  He loved His family and friends.  He ate and drank with sinners.  He healed the sick, and cast out demons, and raised the dead.  He fed the hungry with good food.  He taught the Word of God, preached the Gospel, confessed the faith, and prayed without ceasing.

And for this love and faithfulness, for the Name of the Lord that He glorified, He was persecuted, betrayed and arrested, falsely accused and mocked, beaten and blasphemed, unjustly sentenced to death, and crucified in public shame.  All of which He bore in peace and patience.  He persevered in love for all people, even those who were putting Him to death.  He forgave those who trespassed against Him.  He turned the other cheek, and He suffered His outer and inner garments to be taken from Him.  He did not retaliate, nor did He revile in return, but He relied on His God and Father.

So, if you find that your Christian discipleship is difficult and challenging, do not imagine that Christ Jesus is unaware of or unfamiliar with those challenges and difficulties.  Even His family and friends did not know what to make of Him or what to do with Him.  They misunderstood Him and wanted all the wrong things from Him.  The rulers of the people were jealous and hateful of Him, and conspired against Him, and stirred up the crowds to cry out for His death.

You do not have a Savior and High Priest who is unable to sympathize with you, but One who has been tempted and tormented in all the ways that you are, who has borne all of your sins as though they were His own, and who has shared all your suffering, sorrow, sickness, shame, and death.

Although He is the Son of God from all eternity, nevertheless, in human flesh and blood just like yours He learned the faith and the obedience of sonship through what He suffered in your place.

He learned, not as though He were ever ignorant or naive, but by the way of personal experience, by living your human life as you are called to live, first hand, in His own person.  He did so, not out of intellectual curiosity, as though for some kind of experiment or science project, but in order to establish divine sonship for you in human flesh and blood.  So did He also receive and bear the Spirit of God in His truly human flesh and blood for you and your salvation, in order that your fallen flesh might receive and bear the same Holy Spirit and be raised up to eternal Life with God.

The Lord Jesus Christ thus lived by faith in the Word and promise of His Father.  He lived in the hope of His mercy by the grace and guidance of the Spirit.  He did what His Father called Him to do, and He spoke as His Father gave Him to speak.  In steadfast faith and flawless love, He was handed over to the Cross by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, and He humbly accepted the same, submitting His human will to the divine Will in the hope of the Resurrection.

It is there on the Cross — on the one hand enduring the condemnation of the Law that He perfectly fulfilled, and suffering the separation of sin from the Father He loved and trusted, while on the other hand continuing to trust and believe His Father’s steadfast love and faithfulness — it is there that He permanently established divine sonship for you.  So that, even in the midst of your sin and in the face of your death, the promise of the Gospel and the Sabbath Rest of Christ remain for you.

He has weathered the perfect storm in order to bring you safely through it in and with Himself.  He has endured the inner conflict of the Old Man and the New Man in His own Body, even unto the death of His Cross.  And though sin and death were crucified and put to death in Him, He has prevailed in faith and love, and He has been raised up by the Spirit of His Father as the new and better Adam, as the First Fruits of the New Creation, as the Head of His Body and Bride, the holy Christian Church, in order to be the Firstborn of a great multitude of divine sons and daughters — called and gathered from all the nations, from every tribe and tongue and culture and ethnicity.

Having thus received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father in His Resurrection from the dead, He has poured out the same Spirit generously upon you in the waters of your Holy Baptism.  Not only that, but He continues to pour out the Spirit upon you in the Absolution of the Gospel, in the Word of forgiveness that is preached to you, and in the Spiritual Food and Drink of His Supper.

He has also given you the Word and promise of His God and Father, that you are a dear son of God in Him, beloved and well-pleasing to the Father; that all of your sins are freely and fully forgiven; that God has reconciled you to Himself in Christ; and that, even though you die, yet shall you live.

In this Gospel of Christ Jesus, the Father moves toward you in love, and He gives Himself to you, and He embraces you to Himself as a beloved child, always raising you up from death to Life, from out of darkness into Light, and from the dust of the earth to be a living creature in His own Image.

You are raised up in and with Christ Jesus to live and move and have your being in Him: To move in love — within Him, and through Him, by the Holy Spirit — unto His God and Father in heaven.

That Life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit — that movement of your body and life toward God your Father in heaven, as a living sacrifice — that true faith and worship of the Father in the Spirit and the Truth — is lived from your Holy Baptism through death and the grave into the Resurrection.

It is by the way of the Cross, not for the sake of gratuitous violence or suffering, but in order to work in you a genuine sacrifice of repentance, faith, and love.  So that you, who are a son of God in Christ Jesus by His grace, may learn the faith and obedience of sonship in Him.  And so that sin and unbelief and all their deadly fruits may be crucified and put to death in you.  And so that you, in bearing the Cross for your neighbor, might love your neighbor as the Lord Jesus loves you.

That way of the Cross — which is the way of Christian discipleship — is difficult and challenging, make no mistake about it.  Indeed, it would be utterly impossible for you apart from Christ, if He had not gone before you and established that way in faith and love, in His own flesh and blood.

But now Christ has lived that life for you, and He has gone that way of the Cross for you, and He has died that death for you.  He has borne your sins and suffered all their consequences.  He has atoned for all your sins and reconciled you to God.  This is most certainly true.  So God has also raised this same Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and exalted this beloved Son at His Right Hand, and placed all your enemies beneath His feet, crushed and defeated beneath His wounded heel.

That is how and why He pours out His living and Life-giving Holy Spirit upon you through the Gospel of His Cross, raising you daily from death to Life.  It is for this reason that He has called and sent His servants, not only to baptize you in His Name, but to catechize you with His Word, and to commune you with His Body and Blood in remembrance of Him, with His own authority.

These Gifts Christ freely gives are the First Fruits of His Cross and Passion.  And the same Tree of the Cross bears good fruits in you after its own kind.  The Cross bears such fruits in you, even as it is crushing and killing the old Adam in your heart, mind, body, and soul.  Do not suppose that He is out to get rid of you, but remember what His Father has spoken to you in Holy Baptism:

“You are My beloved son!  With you I am well-pleased.”  I am not angry or upset with you.  I am not out to punish you.  Your sins are all forgiven.  You shall not die forever, for whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.  “This promise is for you and for your children.”

Bind that Word and promise of the Father to yourself — to your heart, mind, body, and soul — by giving attention to the ongoing catechesis of Christ Jesus.  Listen to the preaching of His Word, and know that it is preached to you as a sure and certain Word of Life.

Better yet, take to heart that He has bound Himself to you, and that He binds you to Himself, by His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, and by His divine and holy Name.  Just as He has promised, He is with you always, even to the close of the age.  He shall never leave you nor forsake you.

As He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Right Hand of the Father, so does He bear the good fruits of His Cross in you: Forgiveness of sins, received and given; faith and love and self-sacrifice, but also resurrection and newness of life — day after day by His grace, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul with the Holy Trinity.

Christ has died, and Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!  And by the power of His own indestructible Life, He enlivens you with His Word and Holy Spirit, both now and forevermore.

As you are baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so surely are you a beloved and well-pleasing son of God in Christ Jesus, by His grace, through faith in Him.  His Cross and Resurrection, His Spirit, His Father, His House and Home, and His whole Body and Life are yours.  So has He taught you to pray with the confidence of a dear child to your own dear Father.  And so does He invite you to recline here at His Table, that He should feed you with His holy Body and His precious Blood, from His own hand, for the forgiveness of your sins and Life and Salvation.

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

Knowing the Holy Trinity in Holy Baptism

Throughout the Holy Scriptures, mountains are often the place where God comes to His people and reveals Himself to them.  In the Old Testament, God first came to Moses in the burning bush on Mount Horeb, “the Mountain of God.”  Later, He gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.  And on Mount Zion He established His Temple.  In the New Testament, Jesus is frequently on a mountain, whether it be for prayer to His Father or preaching the Word of life to the people.  The Sermon on the Mount is one obvious example, and a few months ago we heard again about the Mountain of Transfiguration.  In each case, the mountain is the place where God reveals Himself to man.  And in every case, the God who reveals Himself on the mountain is the Holy Trinity.

Certainly, the Word of our Lord Jesus on the mountain this morning is the clearest revelation of the Holy Trinity, as He commissions the Apostles to baptize “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  But this one true God, who changes not — YHWH, the Creator of the heavens and the earth — He has always been the Holy Trinity.  And while this great Mystery cannot be comprehended with your intellect, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always been the Object of all true faith and worship, from the foundation of the world, even to the close of the age.

The Mystery of the Holy Trinity is not simply a dogmatic fact; it is the essential reality of who God is and of all that He has done to give life and to love His good creation.  The Persons of the Trinity are not a matter of divine trivia, as though God might just as well have been some other way.  No, the Triune God — the one true God in three divine Persons — is the Fountain and Source of all life and salvation.  And each Person of the Holy Trinity is actively involved in this divine work.

The Father — who with fatherly, divine goodness and mercy made all things and still preserves them — loves the world, has had mercy upon us, and has given His only Son to die for us.

The Son, out of love for His Father, and out of His great love for you and for all people, came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made Man; He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, He suffered and was buried, and has risen again.

And as you could not by your own reason or strength believe in this Lord Jesus Christ or come to Him, the Holy Spirit unites you with the Son, makes you a child of the Father, and bestows on you the blessings of the Cross and Resurrection: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  This He does through the Church, calling you by the Gospel, enlightening you with His gifts of faith and love in the Liturgy, sanctifying you in the divine Life, and preserving you within the Body of Christ.

But the Mystery of the Holy Triune God is not an easy thing to understand or talk about.  If you try to make logical sense of it, you’ll likely end up with a headache.  It’s much easier to talk about Jesus.  And so it should be; for you do not know the Triune God except through Jesus Christ.

The Holy Triune God and His great salvation are revealed in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.  And in Him, the smallest child understands the Trinity as well or better than the greatest theologian.

Of course, the Incarnation of the Son of God is a great Mystery, as well, on par with that of the Holy Trinity.  But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come to tabernacle with you in flesh and blood like yours, in such a way that you are able to receive Him and to rest yourself in Him.  As your merciful and great High Priest, He has bridged the gap between God and man within His own Body, in His perfect life, by His innocent suffering and death upon the Cross, and in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.  His own Body, crucified and risen, is the Mountain of God, that is, the Place where God and Man have come together perfectly and forever.

The question, then, is where shall you go to find Jesus.  And the answer is given in this Gospel.  For just as Jesus designated the mountain where He would meet the disciples then, so has He indicated the ways and means by which He comes to you and reveals and gives Himself to you.  He has given you His Word in the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles.  And He has attached His Gospel–Word and promises to the waters of Holy Baptism and to the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.  And as the Father has sent Him, so does Christ send His ministers of the Gospel to speak His Word and work His works with His authority in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In this Ministry of the Word, in the preaching of the Gospel and in the Holy Sacraments, you hear and receive Christ Himself, according to His promise to those whom He sends: “He who hears you, hears Me; and he who receives you, receives Me.”  By the Word of Christ Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit, who is actively present and at work in the Ministry of the Gospel of Christ, you are reconciled to God the Father and united with Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.  In Him, the Word-made-Flesh, in the fellowship of His Body, you abide in communion with the Holy Triune God.

That has been the case from your Baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is the Mountain where you meet the Lord and abide in fellowship with Him, unto life everlasting.

The link between Baptism and the Holy Triune God is evident already at the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan River.  For it was no joke when the heavens were there opened, and the voice of God the Father declared Christ to be His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit came down to rest upon Him in bodily form as a Dove.  God has thus declared that He is manifest and made known in Baptism.

As always, this Self-revelation of the Holy Trinity is given in and with the Body of Christ Jesus.  You encounter the Holy Triune God in the waters of your Holy Baptism, therefore, because you are united with Christ in the washing of those waters with His Word and Holy Spirit.

In Baptism, God became your Father, and you became His child, a joint heir with Christ.  You were anointed with His Spirit, who brought Christ and all His benefits into your heart and soul, body and life.  All of this because Christ Himself was baptized for your salvation, and His Baptism has become your Baptism.  He entered the water for you, and you have entered the water with Him.

Holy Baptism is thus a place of a great exchange.  Christ goes into the water holy and righteous, but He comes out saturated with all of your sins and the sins of the whole world, and bearing all your griefs and sorrows in His own Body to the Cross.  Whereas you go into the water utterly corrupted by your sins, inside and out, but you arise and emerge from the washing of the water with the Word cleansed and forgiven and adorned with the beautiful righteousness of Christ Jesus.  You know some of the baggage you have carried into that water, but Christ has taken it all away.

In this “Great Exchange,” it is also the case that, just as Christ participated in your sin by taking it upon Himself, so through your Baptism do you participate in His Cross and Resurrection.

Holy Baptism is thus your personal Good Friday and Easter.  You are crucified with Christ and die with Him, so that you also rise with Him in His Resurrection from the dead.  And as you are buried and raised with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in your Holy Baptism, so are you also given the Name of God Himself, because you are there adopted as His own beloved child.  You not only learn to know the Holy Trinity, but you are taken into the arms of God as a member of His family.

Just think of what that means: You bear the Name of the Holy Triune God!  You are His child!  As you go about all your days and deeds in peace — at work, at home, at school, wherever — you are and you live as someone who shares the divine life and eternal blessings of the one true God.

The Lord Jesus has therefore taught you and tenderly invited you to pray to His God and Father as your own dear God and Father.  For in Christ you bear His Name and are His child.  So do you pray that His Name would be hallowed in your body and life, in all your words and actions, as you gladly give attention to His Word and the preaching of it, and as you live according to His Word.  Just as Christ has instructed His servants: “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

You hallow God’s Name and use it rightly when you call upon His Name in every trouble with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving; when you worship Him in the Spirit and the Truth.  Indeed, the only proper response to the Holy Triune God is worship.  And all true and right worship begins and continues, not with your works and sacrifices, far less with your promises and pledges, but with the Word and works of God in Christ, and with the gifts Christ freely gives you in His Name.

To worship the Lord your God is to acknowledge and confess Him as the true and only God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  He is the Maker of the heavens and the earth, the Redeemer of all mankind by the blood of Christ, and the Sanctifier of the Church by the Word and Sacraments of Christ.  To worship the Lord your God is to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.  To look to Him and rely on Him for life itself and all that you need.  Such worship is rooted in His Holy Baptism, and it lives in the hearing of His Word and in the eating and drinking of His Supper.

But instead of such worship of the Lord your God, who in love has given you life in body and soul, how often do you worship yourself instead?  How often do you fear people more than God, and love the praises of people more than God?  And how often do you doubt His Word and promises?

In fact, doubt may be the most frustrating thing you face as a Christian, because it is the opposite of faith and worship.  It is the lingering well-spring of the sin that remains within your fallen flesh.  Remember how Satan tricked Eve with seeds of doubt?  The devil attacks you in that way, too.

But now repent of your sins, of your doubts and fears and unbelief, and of all your selfishness and self-idolatry.  Return, instead, to the significance and reality of your Holy Baptism, and to your life with God in Christ.  Rejoice and give thanks that, although you have been disobedient, unfaithful, and lazy, and although you have wandered far and wide from the Lord your God, He is and remains your faithful God and Father in Christ Jesus, who is your merciful and great High Priest; and that the Holy Spirit also helps you in your weakness and intercedes for you in peace.

Remember that you are baptized into Christ Jesus, who was crucified, dead, and buried for your transgressions, and that God the Father raised this same Jesus from the dead for your justification.  All that He has accomplished and obtained on your behalf from His own Baptism to His Cross and Resurrection, He has given to you in your Baptism.  Indeed, He has given Himself to you, and He has bound you to Him, that you should be with Him where He is, just as He is always with you.  In the preaching of His Word, in His forgiveness of your sins, and in His Body and His Blood, He is a very present Help in trouble; He is closer to you than a brother, than a mother or a spouse.

As often as you confess your sins according to His Word, you return to the waters of your Baptism into Christ.  The Law of the Lord drowns and destroys the Old Adam in you with all your sinful thoughts and desires, and the Gospel of the new and better Adam, Jesus Christ, raises you from death to life in Him by His Holy Absolution of all your sins in His Name.  And as often as you eat His Body and drink His Blood in faith and with thanksgiving, you are returned to the ongoing reality of your Holy Baptism, and to the life that is yours in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

Like a little fish you were born in the water, and as a little fish you live your whole life in the water of your Baptism.  As Dr. Luther would respond to his own doubts and fears and the frequent assaults of the devil in his life, you also may confess: “I am baptized.”  The Holy Triune God has named you with His Name and bound Himself to you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.  You are buried with Christ in His death, and you are raised with Him in His Resurrection.  You are adorned with His own precious blood and beautiful righteousness.  You are pleasing to God.

God’s own child, I gladly say it, you are baptized into Christ.  So has your God and Father set His Table and invited you to recline here at His Feast within His House, to rest yourself in the Body and Blood of His Son.  As He was given into death for the atonement of the world, so is He given and poured out for you here, for the forgiveness of your sins, and for life and salvation in Him.  By the Holy Spirit, receive these gifts in faith and with thanksgiving, and so rejoice in the Lord.

By His grace, acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity by the confession of this true faith; and worship Him in peace and joy, since He has had mercy upon you in this one Lord, Jesus Christ.

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

Worship the Holy Trinity in the Body of Christ

The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, despite what many are inclined to think, is not simply a matter of trivial pursuit, as though we sat back in our leisure to ponder this whole mental concept of one God in three Persons, and three Persons in one God.  It is not abstract speculation.  And it’s not nit-picky, fine-tooth-combing of minor details that ultimately don’t matter.

The Holy Triune God, as such — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is the Fountain and Source of all things, of Life and Light and Love and all that exists.  To know Him, to believe and trust in Him, to worship Him, the one true God, is to live, really to live forever, in His Light and Love.

And otherwise, apart from Him, you do not live at all forever.  Apart from this one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are damned and die forever in despair and utter darkness.  You need Him.  You need to know Him.  You live only in Him.  You live to worship only Him.

But how on earth does that happen?  How do you know this God?  How shall you believe and trust in Him?  How shall you ever be able to find everlasting life in Him?

How is it that you know God the Father and have Him as your own dear God and Father?  How do you become and live as His dear child?  And how is it that you receive the Life-giving Holy Spirit and breathe Him into your body and life, so that you truly and eternally live?

It is always and only in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, that you do any of this.  You do not know God at all apart from Him.  He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father, but by Him.  It is in Him, and through Him, that the Holy Spirit is poured out upon you generously.  And apart from the Christ, the Anointed One, you receive no anointing of the Holy Spirit.

It is Jesus, or it is nothing.

Dr. Luther has it right in his great hymn, A Mighty Fortress, when he sings of this Lord Jesus Christ, that there is no other god.  Do not think to yourself, Well, there’s the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The Father and the Holy Spirit are no other god than this one true God who is Jesus Christ, the Man from Nazareth.  That is the point.  And that is the great Mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Each Person is one and the same only true God.  If you do not know Jesus Christ, you do not know the true God.  But if you know Jesus Christ, then you know also the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This is what was so scandalous to the Jews in this Holy Gospel and elsewhere.  This Man from Nazareth, the Son of Mary, He is the true and only God.  Not only does He live forever in Himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but He gives eternal life to the children of men.  He is indeed greater than Father Abraham and the Prophets.  You do not know God at all apart from this Man.

Therefore, when Philip later says to Jesus, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough,” Jesus replies, “Philip, if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”

Jesus is the true and only God.  He’s not simply one option among others.  There is no other Way: no other Way to God, and no other Way to Life.  And that is true, not only for us now in the New Testament, but so has it always been from the very beginning, throughout the Holy Scriptures, in the Old Testament and the New.  The people of God in the Old Testament were saved through faith in the Christ who was to come.  And in the Word and promises of God, Christ was there.

Abraham rejoiced to see the Day of Christ.  He saw it in the birth of his son, Isaac, who was born according to the Word and promise of the Lord.  And he saw it especially when he looked up, and he saw that Ram caught in a thicket, whom God provided in place of Abraham’s beloved son.

In all the Words and promises of God, Jesus was there.  Not simply as information, but as the very God who was with His people, powerful to save them from sin, death, and the devil.

Abraham believed in Him, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  He believed the promise of the Christ who would come in the flesh among his descendants.  And now you are justified and saved by faith in the Christ who has come, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead and buried, risen and ascended, now given and poured out at His Altar in His Church on earth, even to the close of the age.  For the Word has become Flesh, and He tabernacles among us.  All the fulness of God dwells with us in the Body of Christ Jesus.

Your faith in Him is faith in the true and only God.  Your life in Him is life with God.  It is by Him that you are saved.  It is by and with Him that you know and worship the Father in the Spirit.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God by whom all things were made, and apart from whom nothing was made that has been made.  Whenever God works, He works through this Son, this Word.  It was Christ whom the Father spoke in the beginning, and it was so.  It was by this Word that all things were brought into existence, and that you also have been brought into existence, the object of the Holy Trinity’s divine, eternal Love and affection.

One and the same Word and Wisdom of God has become Flesh and dwells among us, because He took our flesh and blood from the womb of His Mother Mary and became true Man.  And having taken flesh like yours to be His own, He also took your sin and death upon Himself and bore it in His Body to the Cross.  And there God, the Creator, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the almighty and eternal Son of the Father — there on the Cross He suffered, bled, and died.  It is correct and necessary to confess that God died when Christ Jesus died, for He is the true God.

The Son of God laid down His life for you.  And it is by the death of this true and only God that death is defeated.  It laid hold of One it could not contain.  It bit off far more than it could chew.  It was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

In His innocent suffering and death, and by the shedding of His holy and precious Blood, is the Atonement for your sin, and for all the consequences of your sin.  In His death, Satan has been trampled underfoot, and the tyranny of death and the grave has been ended.  And this great Victory of Christ, the Son of God, your Savior, is manifested in His Resurrection from the dead.  For His crucified and risen Body is the First Fruits of the New Creation, in which Life and Light and Love now reign forever and ever.  In His Body, there is no longer any death or darkness or despair.

All good things have been accomplished in Christ Jesus.  In His Person, in His works, in His death, in His Resurrection and Ascension, and in the preaching of His Word, God is actively present and at work to save you in love.  To save you for Himself forevermore.

This is how you know God.  In Jesus.  In the Gospel.  In the stories of the Bible.  Especially in the stories of Jesus in the Holy Gospels of the New Testament, but so also in the stories of the Old Testament, all of which were always about Him and have been fulfilled for you in Him.

Apart from Jesus you have no life, but in Jesus you have life everlasting.  And that really is what it’s all about.  God desires that you would live with Him, and He brings that about in Christ Jesus.

So, then, how do you know this Jesus of Nazareth?  How do you have Him as your Savior and your God?  That is the most urgent and important question that now faces you, and the answer is just as challenging and scandalous in our own day as the Word of Jesus was for the Jews in His day.

You do not know Jesus apart from His Word of the Gospel.  You do not know Jesus apart from His external means of grace.  You do not find Him in your head or in your heart, not apart from His Word.  To measure God, to measure Jesus, according to your feelings and emotions, is only to make a god out of yourself and out of your own selfish conceits and desires.

You have the Lord Jesus only as He gives Himself to you through His Word.  For He is Himself the Word of God.  And as such, the Word of Christ is not simply information about Jesus.  It is the Word of Jesus Himself speaking to you, in which He is personally present and gives Himself to you.  What is more, He still becomes Flesh to dwell with you, to be your Strength and your Song, your Savior and Salvation, to shelter and protect you, to forgive your sins and give you life.

In the waters of your Baptism, that is where you have Jesus.  And in Jesus, that is where you have the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Look for Him there in the waters of your Baptism.  By repentance and faith, by His Word and Spirit, be returned each day to the waters of your Baptism, to where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have actually given you His own Name and His own divine Life.

Where is Jesus?  He is on the Altar in the Holy Communion, given and poured out for you and for the many.  He feeds you with His Body and His Blood.  You don’t get any closer to God anywhere else in the world than there.  This is the Body of God, given for you to eat.  This is the Blood of God, poured out for you to drink.  It is God who thus gives Himself to you, and in this eating and drinking of Him in the flesh and blood of Christ, you have His Life forever in your body and soul.

When Jesus puts Himself in you, He binds Himself to you, and you to Him.  And He declares to Satan, and to death, and to the whole sinful world, that none of them can have you, because you are His.  You are His very own.  You are His forever.  You are His for Life.

You do not have Jesus apart from these means of grace — His Word and Sacraments.  And apart from Jesus, you do not have the true God, no matter what you may think or feel or experience.  But in these means of grace — in this Word and Sacrament of the Gospel — you do have Jesus.  Or, better to say, He has you; and in Him, you are a child of His Father, anointed by His Holy Spirit.

If people took this to heart, they would be beating down the doors of the Church every day of the week to hear the Gospel preached, to receive the Holy Absolution, and to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.  So would they seek and find His Kingdom and His Righteousness.

As it is, the pursuits of this world — and we Christians fall into those same pursuits far too often and too easily — they are temporal things that come and go without giving life.  At their best, they are perishing.  At their worst, they are false gods that cause you to perish in both body and soul, both now and forever.  But here in His Church, hidden under the humility of His Cross, the very God of very God gives you Himself, and with Himself He gives you divine, eternal Life and Light and Love, which no one and nothing in all of creation shall ever be able to take away from you.

The Life that the Lord Jesus gives to you by the Ministry of His Gospel is not only for your spirit, nor only for your soul, but also for your body.  Though it gets sick, and gets hurt, and gets weak, and has to sleep, and some day will die, your mortal body of frail flesh and blood, fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, will rise and live forever, immortal, imperishable, and glorious in Him.

Raised in the Resurrection of Christ, ascended into heaven to the Right Hand of the Father in and with Him, you live with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.  That is the pledge and the promise of which you partake, already here and now, in the Body and Blood of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ.

That is what you are here to receive.  And receiving these gifts, you worship the Father in the Spirit and the Truth, and you live by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

This is what it is and what it means to be a Christian.  Not only to confess the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, but to worship the Holy Trinity — the Father in His Son and by His Spirit — in and with your spirit, soul, and body, within the one Body of Christ, His Church, on earth as it is in heaven.

This is what it is to live — here in time, and hereafter in eternity.

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

The Faith and Worship of the Holy Trinity

The Holiness of God is that He alone not only lives but is Life in Himself, from all eternity to all eternity, in the permanent relationship of three divine Persons in the perfect unity of mutual Love.

And the Glory of this Holy Triune God is that He, solely for the sake of His own divine love — that is, the Father for the sake of His Son, the Son for the sake of His Father, in the Holy Spirit — the Lord almighty and all-merciful moves outside of Himself to create and give life to others whom He deals with entirely by His grace.  He grants them the freedom to live and to love in holiness; and when they fall, He saves them from their sin and death by His own voluntary Self-sacrifice.

This divine Glory of the one true God is manifested and exercised by His Word and by His actions in and with and for His creation.  Specifically, the Glory of God is manifested and exercised by the Word of Christ, the Word-made-Flesh: by His Incarnation and Atonement, His Cross and Passion, His Resurrection and Ascension, His Ministry of the Gospel, and the entire Life of His Church.

The Father gives His only-begotten Son into the flesh and even unto death upon the Cross for the life and salvation of the world.  He reveals Himself and speaks to you by His Son, and He pours out His Spirit upon you by the same Son, Jesus Christ, in order to save you from sin, death, and every evil, and to give you His own divine life in your body and your soul.

This Divine Liturgy of the Holy Triune God — that is, the Father’s giving of His Son, and His giving of the Spirit by His Son — this Divine Liturgy forms and fills the Church of Christ on earth as it is in heaven.  It has done so once and for all in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  And it has given Life to you in the washing and new birth of Holy Baptism, which is foundational to the Church and the particular way and means by which you enter the Kingdom of God within His Holy Christian Church.

The Divine Liturgy culminates in the Holy Communion.  There the one true God gives Himself to you in Christ, the incarnate Son, by His Word and actions, by the gift of His flesh and blood, and by the gift of His Spirit for your body and soul.  There the Father loves you and cares for you as His own dear child and heir.  He forgives your sins and gives you His Life in place of your death, His Light in the midst of your darkness, and His Love in place of your selfishness and lust.

It is in this way that the Lord your God reigns over you in love as your King; not from the throne of a dictator in a royal palace, but from the Cross of His own Sacrifice in the midst of His Temple.  For here in the Temple of His Church He serves you with the Priesthood of His Atonement and by the Ministry of His Gospel.  In this way, the glorious train of His royal robe fills the Temple.

And in the royal priesthood of all who believe and are baptized into Him, in the faith and life of His Christian disciples from all nations, in all times and places, His Glory fills the earth.

It is for the worship, praise, and glory of the Father in His Son and by His Spirit that you and all have been created.  Not that He depends on you or needs anything from you, but that you live by His grace, receive life and all good things from Him, abide in Him by faith, and give Him thanks and praise.  To worship the Lord your God, the Holy Trinity, is to live within His Divine Liturgy.

Such worship actually is the Christian faith and life.  It is your Christian priesthood.  It is to receive and share the Life and Love of God, and to live in the Light of His Glory, in and with Christ Jesus and by His Holy Spirit.  It is to speak as He speaks, by His Word, and to live with Him as He lives.

It is to prostrate your heart before Him in repentant faith, with fear, love, and trust in Him above all else; then also to prostrate your body and your life before Him, and for your neighbor in love.

This Christian faith and life — this true “catholic religion,” as we confess in the Athanasian Creed — is manifested, exercised, and lived in the worship that you render unto God by your words and by your actions, by the confession of your mouth and the living sacrifice of your body.

It is in what you say with your lips and what you do with your body that you worship the Lord your God by faith, and that you live in love toward Him and toward your neighbor.  For with your heart you believe unto righteousness, and with your mouth you confess and call upon His Name unto salvation.  And because your body shall also be raised in glory unto the life everlasting, so does your body likewise participate in your faith and worship of the one true God, the Holy Trinity.

But how can this be?  How is it even possible?

In your own flesh, you have inherited the guilt and mortality of your parents, and to that deadly inheritance you have added sin upon sin from your conception onward, even to the present day.

Truth be told, there is nothing in your fallen flesh but sin and death and the vile stink of a rotting corpse, though you hide in a whitewashed tomb.  You are a man or woman or child of unclean lips.  You have not spoken as you should.  Nor have you lived in and with your body as you should.

How then shall you worship the Holy Triune God with your mouth and with your body?

How shall you take the holy body and precious blood of Christ, the Son of God, upon your unclean lips?  How shall you eat and drink the Lord Himself, the Holy One, with mouth and lips and tongue that have lied and cursed and gossiped, borne false witness, and profaned the Name of God?

How shall you ascend with your heart and mouth and body, and with your thoughts, words, and actions, unto the Lord your God in heaven?  And how shall you enter into His Kingdom?

How shall you come out of the night into the day, out of the darkness into light, and out of death into the Life of God?  How shall you ever be able to see Him and know Him and live with Him?

Beloved of God, repent of your sins, and listen now to what the Father speaks to you by His Son.  For His Word is near you, in your ears and in your mouth, in your heart and in your life; that is, the Word of faith and forgiveness, which is preached to you in the Name of Christ your Savior.

To be sure, you could not ascend to Him, nor could you have entered into heaven on your own, but He Himself, the Son of God, has come down from heaven to you.  He has descended from the bosom of the Father to embrace you to Himself in peace, and to abide with you in steadfast love.

He has become flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood, and He has taken upon Himself, into His Body, all the curse and consequences of sin and death and hell, in order to atone for the sins of the whole world and to reconcile all flesh to God.  Thus, in His own flesh, with His own blood, He has cleansed your flesh from sin and set your flesh free from death.

As He has been lifted up in death upon the Cross, so does He raise you up from death and the grave unto life with God in both body and soul, now and forever, through His Gospel of forgiveness.

For He is not simply a teacher sent from God.  Nor is He merely a means to some other end.  But already in Him, in His Person, in His Body conceived and born of Mary, crucified and risen, the one true God has drawn near to you and dwells with you.  Not just once-upon-a-time, back then, but right here and now in the earthly things of His Church and Ministry.  In His means of grace He reveals and bestows the heavenly things of God, preached and given and poured out for you.

As He has descended from the Father, and as He comes to you in divine and holy love, so does He pour out the Holy Spirit upon you in peace; and so do you ascend in and with Him to the Father.

It is in and with Christ that your faith and life, your heart and mind, your body and soul, your words and actions are gladly received in the presence of God.  The Father delights in your worship because He delights in you for the sake of Jesus Christ, His only-begotten and well-beloved Son.

Behold here the burning coal with which He touches your lips from His Altar of sacrifice, that is, the Body of Christ which burns brightly with the Holy Spirit. This He places on your lips and on your tongue, not to condemn you or destroy you, but to cleanse you of iniquity, guilt, and shame.

And as this touches your lips, His Word also opens your mouth to show forth His praise, to glorify His holy Name, and to sing with all the host of heaven, the angels and archangels and all saints:

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, Yahweh Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of His Glory!

Come, then, let us worship Him in peace, because He has shown His mercy to us in Christ.

All glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Created for the Life and Love of the Holy Trinity

The Lord, Yahweh, the true and only God, has created you to live in a relationship with Him and with your neighbor: to live by His grace alone, by faith in His Word and promises, by the active presence and work of His Holy Spirit, with love for Him and for one another in His beloved Son.

This Holy Triune God has made you in His own Image and Likeness, so that, by faith and love, you should thus bear fruits after His own kind, that is, like those of Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead in His own Body of flesh and blood.  Good fruits like those of His good Tree.

Trust in Him, therefore, and rely on Him for all that you need in both body and soul, for every good and perfect gift, for life and health and daily bread, unto the resurrection and life everlasting.  Be content with whatever He provides, and be at peace with Him who loves you.

And as He does love you perfectly in Christ, your Savior, so also love your neighbor: your spouse, your children, your parents and siblings, your fellow Christians, and your neighbors in the world.

It is not good that you should live for yourself, nor that you should attempt to go it alone in some kind of private isolation.  You are created to love, and to be loved, as God Himself is Love, the Father for His Son, the Son for His Father, in the Communion of the Holy Spirit.  To live like the Lord, you need your neighbor, and your neighbor needs you, to live as companions in Christ.

Where do you find that kind of life, and how do you live such a life in faith toward God and in love for your neighbor?  It is only in Christ Jesus.  For He is both your Neighbor and your God, your Savior and your Friend, your Pastor and Teacher, and your Companion through death into Life.

It is only in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, crucified and risen from the dead, that you know God the Father and receive the Holy Spirit.  It is only in Christ Jesus that you not only know the one true God as He truly is, but that you also live in and with Him, both now and forever.

So, then, the real question is: Where and how do you find Jesus?  It is on the Mountain where He has directed you to meet Him; which is not a matter of geography or topography, nor of location, location, location in the usual sense, but of Holy Baptism in the Name of the Holy Trinity, and of ongoing catechesis in all that Jesus has taught and commanded by way of His Apostles.

It is by these means of grace, His Word and Sacraments, that you become a Christian, a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ; and it is by these same means of Baptism and Catechesis, to and from the Lord’s Table in the Name and remembrance of Jesus, that you continue to live as a disciple of His.

Consider and learn from the tragic example of Judas Iscariot, who did not continue in the Word and faith of Christ Jesus, but departed and went to his own place, as we heard two weeks ago.  On the Mountain in this morning’s Holy Gospel, that wretched man is conspicuous by his absence; for it is “the Eleven,” not “the Twelve,” who are there gathered following the Resurrection.

But quite apart from Judas Iscariot, consider the example of those remaining eleven disciples; for they worshiped Jesus, St. Matthew says, but “some doubted.”  Considering the other accounts of the Lord’s Resurrection appearances, it is best to understand that all of them were torn between faith and joy on the one hand, fear and doubt on the other.  They were all confused and conflicted.

And isn’t that the same conflict of faith and unbelief that you find in yourself?  From one day to the next, and at any given time.  Like the father at the foot of another mountain: “I believe! Lord, help my unbelief!”  Tossed about and torn apart by the war that rages in your members between the old man, born of Adam, and the New Man, born of Christ and His Holy Spirit.

You are taught to observe all that Jesus has commanded; as a Christian disciple, you are called to take up His Cross and follow after Him in steadfast faith and love.  Indeed, the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, and sanctified you in this one true faith, so that you do believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, and come to Him.  You are here this morning, after all, to worship Him with heart and soul, with your mind, your body, and your spirit.  And yet, to what extent, and in how many ways, are you still doubtful and afraid?

The fact is, that, even knowing the truth, you are not able to approach the Lord Jesus in peace; not on your own.  You cannot abide with Him in faith and love; nor can you live as the disciple you are called to be — except by His grace and His forgiveness of all your sins.

That gracious forgiveness is precisely the authority that He has been given by the Father in His Resurrection from the dead, and by which He now and ever calls you to Himself, away from sin and death to faith and life with God in Christ.  It is the special authority of His Cross & Passion, and of His Resurrection & Ascension, by which He daily and richly forgives you all your sins, and reconciles you to His God and Father in righteousness and peace, and anoints you with His Holy Spirit, so that you actually receive and share and live the divine Life of the Holy Triune God.

For Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of the Father, is the One who has died in your place, in your flesh and blood, bearing all your sins in His own Body; it was for you and for your sins that He was crucified, dead, and buried.

And it is this very One who bore your sin and died your death, whom God the Father has raised up again, and upon whom He has poured out His Spirit, in His Resurrection as also at His Baptism.  Thus, in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, you also are absolved and raised from the dead; you are sanctified by the Holy Spirit; and you are declared to be a beloved and well-pleasing son of God.

This is the Great Exchange that Christ Jesus has accomplished by His Incarnation, His Baptism, His Cross and Resurrection: He became like you, in order to recreate you in His own Image and Likeness, to raise you from the dust of the earth, to breathe divine Life into your body and soul.

So it is that you become like Him; first of all in your Holy Baptism, whereby you share His Cross and Resurrection, and receive His Name, and enter into a living fellowship with the Holy Trinity.

And what you have been given in your Baptism, once and forever, you also continue to receive, and you retain it, by the daily catechesis of the Word of Christ; that is, not only the teaching and learning of facts and information, but the catechesis of contrition and repentance, of confession and Absolution, the preaching and teaching of the Law and the Gospel in the Name of Jesus.

It is by and with and in that Word of Christ, and specifically by His Word of the Gospel, that your sins are daily and richly forgiven, that your faith is renewed and strengthened, and that you live in love with God and Man by the Spirit of this same Lord Jesus Christ.

It is by that Word of His Gospel that you know and worship the Holy Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; not as an exercise of dogmatic trivia, but as your Light and Life and Salvation.

As He has taken you to be His own, and as He shall never leave you nor forsake you, so it is that sin and death have no more power and dominion over you.  For Christ is your King, who reigns over you in love from His Cross and at the Right Hand of His God and Father; who has redeemed you for Himself; and by whose Blood and Righteousness you live, both now and forever and ever.

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

Like Father, Like Son

If you go north on High Street, a few blocks from Milton, you’ll pass a house with a huge message written on the front: “Abraham believed,” it says.  The letters are a bit worse for the wear, but you can still read it easily enough.  I pass by it frequently, usually several times a day, and so I have often wondered about that message.

I have no desire to question or criticize the intentions of whoever wrote “Abraham believed” on that house.  The words themselves are a very brief quote from the Holy Scriptures, with which I cannot argue; nor would I want to argue with them.  There is a problem, however, in taking such words out of context, because doing so results in ambiguity, confusion, and uncertainty.

There are many people who would like to hold up Father Abraham as a common denominator between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, since each of these religions holds Abraham in some esteem and finds him in its scriptures.  I’m sure that we can all agree that, in this world, we would prefer to see less violence and hostility, and a mutual respect for human life and dignity.

What cannot be found or claimed is any common ground of faith in Father Abraham; leastwise, not in the man himself, nor apart from the actual story of his relationship with the Lord.  For it is not the great Patriarch, but his God, who is the Source and Center of faith and life and all things.

It is necessary, then, to confess the object and content of Abraham’s faith.  In other words, What did Abraham believe?  And, again, Whom did he believe?  Even to say, with the Holy Scriptures, that “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” still begs the essential questions: One must know what Abraham’s God is like, and what He says and does.  More than that, if you would be a child of Father Abraham, you must know Abraham’s God; that is, not just “about” Him, but you must know the Lord God Himself.  And it is only by His Word that you do.

Abraham knew the one true God, believed in Him, worshiped Him by faith, and was justified by Him, in the Word and promise of the Son.  That was the object and content of Abraham’s faith: namely, the promise that he would have a son, and that in his Seed both he and his family and all the nations of the world would be blessed.

Abraham saw and rejoiced in that promise, in the birth of his son, Isaac.  And he clung to that same promise, even still, when the Lord God told him to sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved.  He trusted that God would raise Isaac from the dead, as needs may be, in order to fulfill the promise He had given.  As it was, the Lord prevented Abraham at the last moment, and spared his beloved son.  Instead, the Lord provided for Himself the Lamb, a Ram caught in the branches by its horns, to be sacrificed as a whole burnt offering on Mt. Moriah.  For there the Lord saw, and He provided.  And there, again, Abraham saw and rejoiced in the Word and promise of God.

Now the Lord Jesus reveals that what Abraham saw and rejoiced in was the Day of Christ Jesus Himself.  That is the audacious claim that He makes concerning Himself in this Holy Gospel, which would be blasphemous and conceited in the extreme, if not for the fact that it is the Truth.  For it is Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, God in the flesh, in whom Abraham believed, and by whom Abraham is justified and saved.

We are all quite sensitive to boasting in others, because we are so prone to boasting in ourselves.  But Jesus is not boasting, except in His own God and Father.  He does not glorify Himself, but He honors the Father who sent Him.  This is not to make of Christ Jesus a “lesser god,” but it is to recognize the one and only God in Him.  To know the Father, is to know and love the Son; and to know the Son, is to know Him in the flesh as the true Seed of Abraham, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  There is no other God.

That is the great scandal of Christianity, which does not tolerate any other claim or confession, and which, therefore, cannot be tolerated.  It is this fact, that the one true God is known only in Christ Jesus, that causes the world to hurl abuse at Him, and to pick up stones to throw at Him.  And yet, the fact remains; and it is actually confirmed by the hostility of those who thus dishonor Him.

The world in its wisdom has not come to know God (nor could it).  Therefore, God, in His wisdom, has made Himself known by the foolishness of the Cross, by the Crucifixion of the Christ, and by the preaching of this foolish message of the crucified God.

Like Father, like Son.  You all know how that goes; but, all the more so in the case of this Son.  You know both God the Father and Father Abraham in Him.  For He is a true Son of Abraham, but He is also Abraham’s Savior and Lord.  The faith of Father Abraham is found in Him, the promised Seed, who lives by faith in His own God and Father in heaven.  So, too, is Abraham’s faith fulfilled in this Son, who is conceived and born miraculously, according to the Word and promise of God, and is sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross, as the Lamb that God has provided for Himself; and this same Christ Jesus, God has also raised from the dead for the justification of the world in Him.

You see both Abraham’s faith in the promise, and God’s fulfillment of the promise, in the flesh and blood of Jesus.  Thus, He is indeed greater than Father Abraham, and He is more than all the prophets; not because He does not die, but precisely because He does, and by His death He conquers death for all who love and trust in Him by keeping His Word.

In His Baptism, He received the promised Spirit of the Father, which was both the consecration of His Body for the Cross and the pledge of His Resurrection from the dead.  And having thus received the Spirit in His crucified and risen Body, He now pours out the same Holy Spirit upon His Body, the Church, in that which you see and hear.

This is the Wisdom of God: Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified.  By His willing sacrifice upon the Cross, and in His bodily Resurrection, He has established His Church; and, as a Master Workman, He builds her up in Himself by the catechesis of His Word and by the preaching of His Gospel.  Thus, His New Eve is crafted from the flesh and bone, the water and the blood of this New Adam.  And His own beloved Sarah conceives and gives birth to the children of God, from a womb once dead and barren.  By the Word and Spirit of the Father, in Christ, she has become at once both a Virgin Bride and a Royal Mother.  And so are you, with her, both cleansed and sanctified by faith and fruitful in love.  For out of death you are raised to newness of life in Christ.

It is in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, that you know and love the Father and receive the Holy Spirit, unto the life everlasting in body and soul.  For by His death, He has defeated death and removed its power over the children of men.  He has entered Hades and burst it asunder from the inside-out.  He returned to the dust of the earth, whence man was taken, and yet, His flesh has not suffered decay, but He has risen from the dead as the very Image and Likeness of God, the First-fruits of the New Creation.  In Him, the fellowship of God and man is perfectly and permanently embodied and is always actively accomplished; so that man now lives and abides in the undivided Unity and the blessed Communion of the Holy Trinity.

That which is sure and certain and forever true in Christ Jesus, is given to you by the Ministry of His Word: by the preaching of His Cross for the forgiveness of all your sins; by the promise of His Resurrection, which is your righteousness and reconciliation with God; and by the Word-made-Flesh, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink in the Sacrament of the Altar.

So does God the Father make Himself known to you in the Person of His beloved Son.  And this, indeed, is the knowledge of profound and personal intimacy.  That is to say, the one true God gives Himself to you, and makes His dwelling with you, and He abides in you, in your body and soul, with His Word and Spirit, and with His own flesh and blood.  Thus does He pledge Himself to you against the condemnation of the Law, against the assaults and accusations of the devil, against the experience of sin and its consequences, both in yourself and in others, and against the seeming inevitability and finality of death and the grave.

None of these enemies (not even God’s own holy Law) can harm you or destroy you, because all of these have been placed beneath the feet of Christ.  He has honored the Father, and the Father has glorified Him, for the life and salvation of His good creation (and in fulfillment of His Law).  Therefore, all things are made brand new by the gift of His Spirit, and all the nations of the world are blessed by the Seed of Abraham, that is, by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.

That is the promise that stands fast in the face of every contradiction.  Death and dishonor do not and cannot undo it, because they have been undone.  You cling to the promise for dear life, come hell or high water against you, because, by and with this promise of Christ, God the Lord clings to you and will not let you go.  Even when He preaches the Law, and calls you to repentance, and lays the Cross upon you, He does so in love, in order to lay hold of you in peace.  He abides with you, that you may abide in Him.  He will not abandon your soul to Hades, nor leave your flesh to decay back into the dust forever.  But as He keeps you by His Word, so shall you not die, but live.

The promise is sure.  It is solid and secure.  It shall not be shaken, nor removed.  It is as real as the Body of Christ, as eternal as the Son of the Living God.  In the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, God has sworn an oath by Himself, and has established an everlasting Covenant within Himself, that is, the Father with His own dearly-beloved Son in the Holy Spirit.  As surely as He is God, He is faithful, and He will do what He has promised.  He cannot deny Himself.  He will not deny you.

As Abraham once rejoiced in the promise of the Son, and saw the Day of Christ in his own beloved Isaac, so has the promise been made more sure for you in the Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection of your dear Lord Jesus Christ.  Now is the Day of His grace.  Now is the Day of His Salvation.

Today, as you hear His Voice, He pours out His Spirit upon you by the forgiveness of all your sins; and so does He give you His own divine eternal Life.  In the Body and the Blood of Christ Jesus, you know the Father in His Son: You know Him as “He is,” and ever shall be.  And you dwell, now and forever, in the Temple of God.

Rejoice, therefore, and let us give glory to Him — to the Father in His Son and by His Spirit — because He has shown His mercy to us.  Blessed be the Holy Trinity, and the Undivided Unity, the true and only God, now and forever.  Amen.

Born of the Holy Trinity into His Kingdom

The genesis of the flesh is flesh.  The genesis of the Spirit is spirit.

The distinction is not material vs. immaterial; not tangible vs. intangible; not visible vs. invisible; nor between bodies of flesh and disembodied spirits.

But the contrast is between that which bears the Spirit of God, and that which does not.

Flesh that is filled with the Spirit of God is alive and living.

Flesh apart from the Spirit of God is dead and dying.  It returns to the dust, as we heard last week.  It goes down to sheol, to the grave, into the pit.  It decays, suffers destruction, and disintegrates.

Because flesh, without the Spirit of God, is idolatrous and covetous.  It hungers, not for the true and holy God, but for flesh (like itself).  It consumes flesh, but, in doing so, it is itself consumed.  It is cannibalistic, because sin is the ultimate flesh-eating virus.

Flesh feeds upon itself, but it cannot sustain itself.  It cannot survive on its own, nor live for long,  It cannot save itself.

By itself, apart from the Spirit of God, flesh is blind and stumbles around in the darkness, in a perpetual nighttime of ignorance and unbelief.  It cannot see God.  It cannot know God.  It cannot believe in God; nor can it go to Him.  It cannot ascend into heaven, nor can it enter the Kingdom of God.

More to the point, you do not and cannot know God by way of your own fallen flesh.  You do not and cannot know heavenly things, nor can you go to heaven, by any means of your fallen flesh.

Without the Spirit of God, your flesh is undone.  But if your fallen flesh is confronted by the Holy, Holy, Holy God, apart from His Gospel, then you are undone the more quickly; because you are not holy, but sinful and unclean.

However, God the Father has sent His only-begotten Son into the world, in love, in order to save the world through Him — to grant eternal life with Himself to those who have not known Him.

As in the beginning, the Father speaks His Word into the darkness — and His Word is Light and Life and Love for all of creation — for He speaks to you by His Son, Christ Jesus.

Thus, you see the Kingdom of God in Him, the Son of Man, who has descended from heaven for you.  In Him, God has become Man.  The Word has become Flesh.

How can this be?  It is by the Spirit of God, who came upon the Blessed Virgin Mary to conceive the Son of God in her womb, so that He has become flesh of her flesh, and blood of her blood.

Thus, the New Adam is conceived and born of the New Eve, by the grace of God, by His Word and Spirit; so that the fall into sin and the curse of all flesh are reversed in the flesh of Christ.

The Signs that He does, therefore — like the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, etc. — are signs of the New Creation.  These are the dawning of the eternal Eighth Day and the blooming of the New Paradise, which the incarnate Son works and accomplishes, first of all in Himself, but for us men and our salvation, by His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead.

For the New Birth is harder than the first; indeed, it is impossible for the flesh without the Spirit of God.  It is harder than the labor and delivery of fallen flesh, which are cursed by sin and death.  It is harder than entering again into your mother’s womb when you are old, as it is harder than putting a camel through the eye of a needle.

The birth pangs, in this case, are those of the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus — the suffering and death of the Son of God in human flesh — the shedding of His holy and precious blood in atonement for your blood.

Ironically, these depths of His descent — into death and the grave, into the pit, into hades and sheol — coincide with His being lifted up.  For by His Cross, He offers Himself up to God as the Sacrifice for the sins of the world, and as the sweet-smelling Incense of peace and reconciliation with God.

In His own flesh, He has fully borne your sin and death.

But His Father has received and accepted His Sacrifice, and has raised Him up again from death to life, and has poured out the Spirit upon Him: upon His Body, crucified and risen; into His flesh and blood.

Therefore, His bodily Resurrection from the dead is the New Genesis, and He is the New Adam, from whom the children of God are born.

It is the Spirit who accomplishes this New Birth in you, by putting you to death and raising you up to new life, in and with Christ Jesus.  That is what repentance is — being turned inside-out, away from sin and death, unto His forgiveness of your sins — unto faith in Christ, by which you see God, and know Him, and love Him, and live in Him, now and forever.

The Spirit works this dying and rising in you by the earthly means of grace: by the Ministry of the Gospel, which is the Voice of the Spirit, by which alone you know His works, His gifts and graces.

He speaks by the cleansed lips of those who are called and sent (ordained) in the Name of Christ; so that the Holy Spirit is breathed into man — into fallen flesh — with Holy Absolution.

And by this forgiveness of the Gospel, by this breathing of the Spirit into you, you are no longer dead and dying, but alive and living; you are not undone, but cleansed, healed, and made new.

It is like the coal from the altar of incense — the coal previously taken from the altar of sacrifice into the holy place, to burn the incense before the Holy of Holies — the coal that touched Isaiah’s lips and cleansed him from iniquity, so that he could go and preach the Word of the Lord to Israel.

So the coal of the Cross, by which Christ was offered up for us all as an acceptable Sacrifice and as sweet-smelling Incense, is now also the Fruit of the Tree by which you are forgiven and live.

From the Altar of His Cross, He touches your lips with His Body and His Blood, and you are fully forgiven all your sins, cleansed of all iniquity.  You shall not die, but live.

So the administration of the means of grace — that is, the whole the Ministry of the Gospel — is now the lifting up of the Son of Man, of Christ the Crucified, by which you are brought to faith and life in Him.

Thus, by your Holy Baptism, you have been born again of water and the Spirit.  You have been put to death, crucified and buried with Christ, and raised with Him to newness of life; so that now you are a child of God, and you live as a child of God, by His grace.

As the Son of God was conceived and born of the Woman, in order to become true Man — as He was baptized with sinners, even unto His death upon the Cross in the place of sinners — and as He has risen from the dust of the earth, the Firstborn from the dead, the First Fruits of the New Creation — so, indeed, are you also born again from death to life, as a son of God in Christ.

Therefore, beloved of the Holy Trinity, you know the only true God; not as a doctrinal abstraction, but as your own dear Father: your true Father.

You know the Father in Christ Jesus, His beloved Son, who is your Brother in the flesh, and your Savior from sin and death.

You know the Father and His Son by the Spirit He has given you in Christ, who breathes in you the very Life of God.

You know the Holy Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, here and now, in this holy place (which He sanctifies by His presence).  You know Him in the hearing of His Word, in the eating of the flesh of Christ, in the drinking of His Blood; for His Word and Flesh are Spirit and Life.

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

The Promise of the Father

If Christian discipleship is difficult and challenging, do not suppose that Christ Jesus is unaware of that, nor that He is unfamiliar with the challenges and difficulties that you now face. For the discipleship to which you have been called, and which you have received in Holy Baptism, is the life that Christ has first of all lived for you, which you now live in Him (and He lives in you).

To be a disciple, therefore—to be a Christian—is to follow after Christ Jesus in the way that He has already gone before you: in the way of the Cross, unto the Resurrection and the life everlasting.

As disciples are made by Holy Baptism and the ongoing catechesis of the Word of Christ, so was the Lord Jesus Himself baptized for you and for all people, for the repentance and forgiveness of the world, and for the fulfilling of all righteousness, that you and all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve might be justified and saved from sin and death.

Consider what His Baptism signified and meant for Jesus: In submitting Himself to St. John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, including all of your sins of thought, word and deed, every last one of them. His was a bath that did not make Him clean—for He was already spotless, pure, holy and without blemish—but the waters of the Jordan soaked Him from head to foot with all the dirt of fallen man, all the mud and gunk and filth and stench of sinful unbelief, disobedience, doubt and despair.

He took upon Himself, and He bore in His own body, your lying and cheating, your covetous lust and greed, your cursing and filthy jokes, your laziness and negligence, your adultery and murder, your robbery of things and your gossiping tongue by which you rob your neighbor of his good name and reputation. He took all of this, and every other sin from Adam to the end of the world, and took ownership and responsibility for it, as though He alone were guilty, sinful and unclean.

And His wages for that great act of love, for that sin which He assumed into Himself, was death. Submitting to baptism was committing Himself to be crucified, dead and buried. Stepping into the water was, for this Man, a return to the dust of the earth from which the first man had been taken.

So, for Christ Jesus, as for you, His Baptism indicated that He should be drowned and die with all your sinful lusts and desires, in the place of your old Adam.

But what His Baptism also meant was indicated by the Word of His God and Father, and by the bodily sign of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Though He was so thoroughly soaked and saturated with the sins of the world—so as to be the Sinner above all others, and really to become sin itself and the curse of sin and death—He was also anointed by His Father with the Holy Spirit, and He was given the sure and certain Word of God, that He was a beloved and well-pleasing Son.

He received this Word and Spirit of God in faith, as the Son of Man, as your Substitute and Savior. He heard it, and He believed it, and He lived in the confidence and hope of that Word from His dear Father in heaven. He received it as the surety and promise of the Resurrection, that His Father would not abandon Him to the grave nor allow His flesh to suffer decay, but that He would pour out the Spirt upon His crucified body and raise Him again from the dust of the earth.

Of course, the Father and the Holy Spirit and immortal Life belong to the Son of God from all eternity, according to His own divine nature. But in the waters of His Baptism, not only in the flesh but in the likeness of fallen flesh—as the true and perfect Man, but also living under the curse and consequence of sin—He received the promise of the Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as a pledge that, in Him, all men and women and their children would be redeemed and raised up in righteousness; that mortal flesh, after returning to the dirt, would receive the Holy Spirit and rise up again to live forever.

Now, then, understand that your dear Lord Jesus lived—as you are called to live—by faith in that Word and promise of His God and Father. He proceeded from the waters of the Jordan in that holy faith, in love for His Father and in love for all His neighbors, for you and for all those neighbors (everywhere and every when) who would become His many brothers and sisters by divine grace.

He was driven into the wilderness (by the Spirit of God!) to be tempted by the devil in all the ways that you are tempted, and in the midst of that contest to persevere by faith in the Word and promise of His Baptism: “If you are the Son of God,” the devil taunted, but there yet stood fast the Word that Jesus had heard and received from the Father: “You are My beloved Son.” So He believed.

And, believing, He continued in the way that He was called to go. He was faithful in His vocation, and He carried out the works of love that belonged to that particular place and station in life. He honored His father and mother. He loved His family and friends. He ate and drank with sinners. He healed the sick, and cast out demons, and raised the dead. He fed the hungry with good food. He taught the Word of God, preached the Gospel, confessed the faith, and prayed without ceasing.

For such great love, for His faithfulness in all things, for the Name of the Lord that He glorified, He was persecuted, betrayed and arrested, falsely accused and mocked, beaten and blasphemed, unjustly sentenced to death, and crucified in public shame.

All of this He bore patiently, in peace. He continued to trust His Father and the promise of His Baptism. He persevered in love for all people, even those who were hurting and killing Him. He forgave those who trespassed against Him. He turned the other cheek, and suffered His outer and inner garments to be taken from Him. He did not retaliate, nor did He revile in return, but He relied on the hope of the Resurrection.

The way He endured His Passion is simply the culmination of the way He lived His entire Life on the way of the Cross: from the watery grave of the Jordan River, to the garden tomb in which His body would be laid to rest on that sixth day when the Lord’s good work would be finished for us.

So, again, if you find that Christian discipleship is difficult and challenging, do not suppose that Christ Jesus is unaware of that, nor that He is unfamiliar with your challenges and difficulties. For the people misunderstood Him and wanted all the wrong things from Him. The rulers of the people were jealous and hateful of Him, and conspired against Him, and stirred up the crowds to cry out for His death. Meanwhile, His family, or most of them, thought He was out of His mind. His disciples, and even His closest friends among them, were frequently confused and afraid; they bickered and fought and competed with each other, and when He was arrested they all ran away.

Therefore, you do not have a Savior and High Priest who is unable to sympathize with you, but One who has indeed been tempted and tormented in all the ways that you are, and who has borne all your sin as though it were His own (though He Himself had no sin); One who has shared your suffering and sadness, your sickness and shame; who has carried your cross and died your death

Although He is the Son of God from all eternity, by His own nature, and by His own divine right, nevertheless, in human flesh and blood just like yours, He learned the faith and the obedience of sonship through what He bore and suffered on your behalf.

He learned, not as though He were ever ignorant or naive, but by the way of personal experience, by living your human life as you are called to live, first hand, in His own person. He did so, not out of intellectual curiosity, as though for some kind of experiment or science project, but in order to establish divine sonship for you in human flesh and blood. Likewise, so did He receive and bear the Spirit of God in His truly human flesh and blood, for you and your salvation, in order that your fallen flesh might receive and bear the same Holy Spirit and be raised up to eternal life with God.

Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ lived by faith in the Word and promise of His Father. He lived in the hope of His mercy, by the grace and guidance of the Spirit. He did what His Father called Him to do, and He spoke as the Father gave Him to speak. In steadfast faith and flawless love, He was handed over to the Cross (by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God), and He humbly accepted the same, submitting His human will to the divine will, in the hope of the Resurrection.

It is there upon the Cross, in that crucible of anguish—on the one hand enduring the condemnation of the Law that He perfectly fulfilled, and suffering the separation of sin from the Father He loved and trusted, while on the other hand continuing to trust and believe, even in the face of death and divine judgment, the steadfast love and faithful promise of His Father—it is in that crucible that He permanently establishes divine sonship for you. So that, even in the midst of your sin, and in the face of your death, the promise of the Gospel and the Sabbath Rest of Christ remain for you.

He has weathered the perfect storm in order to bring you through it safely in and with Himself. He has endured the inner conflict of the Old Man and the New Man in His own body, even unto the death of His Cross; and though sin and death were crucified and put to death in Him, He has prevailed in faith and love, and He has been raised up by the Spirit of His Father as the new and better Adam, as the First Fruits of the New Creation, as the Head of His Body and Bride, the holy Christian Church, so as to become the Firstborn of a great multitude of divine sons and daughters.

Having thus received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father in His Resurrection from the dead, He has poured out the same Spirit generously upon you in the waters of your Holy Baptism. Not only that, but He continues to pour out the Spirit upon you in the Absolution of the Gospel, in the Word of forgiveness that is preached to you, and in the spiritual Food and Drink of His Altar.

He has likewise given you the sure and certain Word and promise of His God and Father: that you are a dear son of God in Christ Jesus, and you are beloved and well-pleasing to the Father in Him; that all of your sins are freely and fully forgiven, and that God has truly reconciled you to Himself in Christ; and that, even though you die, yet shall you live in body and soul, heart, mind and spirit.

This is the Word and Spirit of God, who is your own dear Father in Christ, which is given to you on the way, and attends you, and upholds you. It stands fast in Christ, even when you falter, so that it remains true—and it remains for you—regardless of what you find or experience in yourself.

In this Gospel of Christ Jesus, the Father moves toward you in love, and He gives Himself to you, and He embraces you to Himself as a beloved child, always raising you up from death to life, from out of darkness into light, and from the dust of the earth to be a living creature in His own Image.

You are raised up, in and with Christ Jesus, to live and move and have your being in Him; to move in love—within Him, and through Him, by the Holy Spirit—unto His God and Father in heaven.

That Life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit—that movement of your body and life toward God your Father in heaven, as a living sacrifice—that true faith and worship of the Holy Trinity (in the Sprit and in Truth), is lived from your Holy Baptism into Christ Jesus, and by the way of the Cross.

It is by the way of the Cross, not for the sake of gratuitous violence or suffering, nor as some kind of divine sado-masochism, but to work in you a genuine sacrifice of repentance, faith and love; so that you, who are a son of God in Christ Jesus, by His grace, may learn the faith and obedience of sonship in Him; and so that sin and unbelief and all their deadly fruits may be put to death and die in you; and so that you, bearing the Cross for your neighbor, may love your neighbor and give him life, in the way that Christ your Savior loves you and gives you life (i.e. by the way of His Cross).

That way of the Cross, which is your Christian discipleship, is difficult and challenging; make no mistake about it. Indeed, it would be utterly impossible for you apart from Christ, if He had not gone before you and established the way in faith and love, in His own flesh and blood.

But now Christ has lived that life for you, and He has gone that way of the Cross for you, and He has died that death for you. He has borne your sins and suffered all their consequences. He has atoned for all your sins and reconciled you to God. This is most certainly true; for God has also raised this same Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and exalted this beloved Son at His right hand, and placed all your enemies under His feet, crushed and defeated beneath His once-wounded heel.

This is how and why He pours out His living and life-giving Holy Spirit upon you—through the Gospel of His Cross—raising you, daily, from death unto life. For which reason He has called and sent your pastors to you, not only to baptize, but to preach and teach His Word, and to commune you with His Body and His Blood; all of this in His Name and stead, and with His own authority.

These gifts of the Gospel, the means of grace, are the first fruits of His Cross and Passion, and so does the same tree of the Cross bear good fruits in you; even when it is crushing and killing your old Adam, and it seems as though God were not your loving Father at all, but rather an enemy who is out to destroy you altogether. Not so! Remember the Word and promise of your Baptism:

“You are My beloved son! With you I am well-pleased.” I am not angry or upset with you. I am not out to punish you. Your sins are all forgiven. You shall not die forever. “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” “This promise is for you and for your children.”

Bind that Word and promise to yourself, dear child of God, by giving attention to the ongoing catechesis of Christ. Listen to the preaching of His Word, and know that it is preached to you as a sure and certain Word of life.

And take heart that He has bound Himself to you, and you to Him.

He shall never leave you nor forsake you, but rather He is near you, and He is with you always.

Just as Christ is risen from the dead through the glory of the Father, and lives and reigns forever, so does He bear the good fruits of His Cross in you: the forgiveness of sins, received and given; faith and love, and self-sacrifice, but also resurrection and new life—day after day, by His grace, through the forgiveness of all your sins, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting.

Is this not the life that Christ has lived for you? Yes. And He still lives—and He is still for you, with all the power of His indestructible life—both now and forever. This is the life that He now lives in you and with you, which you also live in Him, by the Holy Spirit whom He has given you.

This is the divine eternal Life of the Holy Triune God, which is now also yours by His grace, as you have received the adoption of sons in Christ Jesus. For as you are baptized in His Name, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and united with the beloved and well-pleasing Son of the Father in His Cross and Resurrection, so surely is the God and Father of Jesus your God and Father, and you are His own dear child, forever and ever. Amen.