The Life and Salvation of the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus

Be sober in all things. Endure hardship and bear the cross patiently. Do the work that God has given you to do. Fulfill your calling as a Christian.

The Lord your God has poured Himself out as a drink offering for you and for all people, even to the ends of the earth. And He pours Himself out for you here — for you and for the many — that you should be crowned with His righteousness, sealed with His Blood, and live with Him in His Kingdom, in safety, peace, and happiness forever.

By the baring of His holy arms upon the wood of the Cross, He has redeemed His people and the whole of His creation from the curse of sin and death.

And now He also bares His holy outstretched arms and His merciful hands by causing the Gospel to be preached to all the nations, to make known His salvation to all men and women everywhere, and to comfort His Church, His beloved Jerusalem, even in the midst of her suffering and sorrow.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of God, in flesh and blood like your own, has fulfilled the entire Law, the Word and holy Will of His Father. He has established faith and love, righteousness and holiness, in Himself, in His own Body, in the perfect unity of His own Person as the One who is both true God and true Man. It is in Him, therefore, by faith in Him, that all the sons and daughters of man are called and given to live the divine life, to partake of the divine nature, and to abide in peace and joy forevermore within the bosom of His God and Father.

He has broken down the wall of hostility and separation between God and man, which sin erected in the fall of Adam. The Lord has removed the accusation of the Law and every condemnation; for He has suffered the death and damnation of sin in His own Body, and the wrath of God against all unrighteousness. And having done so in perfect faith and love, in holiness and innocence before His God and Father, He has been vindicated and raised from the dead on behalf of all people.

Because His bloody Cross and Passion have made Atonement for the sins of the whole world, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ has defeated death forever and crushed the devil’s head.

His Resurrection is the Father’s Holy Absolution of the world, which He has reconciled to Himself in Christ, His dear Son. All flesh and all of creation are restored in the flesh of Christ, in His Body, crucified and risen. So God the Father now beholds the world in Jesus Christ, and it is very good.

All of this redemption, reconciliation, and righteousness, the Lord has accomplished and fulfilled, not for His own benefit, but for you and for all — that you might live in His good and glorious New Creation — that you might live, by faith in Christ Jesus, in the love of God forevermore.

It is into that life and love that God invites you and brings you by His Gospel, which is the Word of Christ, the proclamation of His Cross and Resurrection, the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name, and of peace with God in His holy and precious Blood.

As He brought all of creation into being out of nothing by His Word, so has He also brought about the New Creation by His Word. And so it is that He brings you out of death into life — out of the darkness of your sins into the Light of His Love, into His New Creation — all by His Word.

It is by His Word that He has given you the new birth of water and the Holy Spirit, so that you are no longer dead in your trespasses and sin, but having been crucified with Christ you are raised with Him to newness of life with God, here in time and hereafter in eternity. Outside of Christ Jesus you are condemned, but in Him you are alive and shall be saved eternally. Remain in Him, therefore, by returning daily to your Baptism through contrition, repentance, and faith, and by living the new life to which He has called you, in love for God and man, according to His Word.

Do not underestimate the importance and necessity of His Word and the preaching of it. For it is His Word that separates the darkness from the Light. It is His Word that raises you from death to life. And it is His Word that saves you from every evil of body and soul, until He shall call you from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.

It is when His people disregard His Word and turn away from it that His good creation falls into the curse and condemnation of sin and death. And, as it is by His Word that you abide in Christ, and by His Word that Christ abides in you, so it is that, when you turn a deaf ear to His Word and refuse to hear it, then you are found outside of Him and condemned in your unfaithfulness.

Where His Word reproaches you for your unbelief and hardness of heart, repent. Do not become angry or defensive; do not persist in your stubbornness and sin, but repent and believe the Gospel. Do not refuse to hear the testimony of those who are the witnesses of His Cross and Resurrection, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Do not despise this preaching of His Word, but receive it with your ears, ponder it in your heart, believe it, and live according to it at all times.

Trust Christ, that He was crucified for your transgressions and raised again for your justification. Live in Him, and do not allow the devil, the world, or your sinful flesh to rob you of that life.

Wherever in the world He has called you and stationed you to be, live and work there in the joyful confidence of His Gospel, and in the love that His Word directs you to have for your neighbor.

If you are a preacher, preach. But let none of you suppose that only preachers shall be saved or live by the Word of Christ. Rather, live in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, according to His Word that has been preached to you, within each and all of your callings and stations in life as a Christian. Know that the Lord your God works with you and in you, confirming His Word to you by the signs of His grace, mercy, and peace in your faithful service within your own place, wherever it might be, and in all of your various relationships.

Live such as you are, as one whose life is safe and secure in Christ Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. That is where you live by faith, even as you live in love here on earth

And that, too, is very good, for Jesus’ sake

The goodness of His creation — redeemed by His Cross and restored in His Resurrection — and the goodness of life in this world, is demonstrated by the ways and means with which He causes His Gospel to be preached to all the nations of the world, even to the ends of the earth.

Not angels, but men of flesh and blood like His own, He calls and sends in His Name to preach.

Men like St. Mark the Evangelist, whom we remember with praise and thanksgiving to God this evening. By his hand, the Word of Christ Jesus has been recorded and published in all the world. Surely by such proclamation he was useful to St.  Peter and St.  Paul. And he is useful to you, also, by the Word that he has written in the Holy Spirit. With mortal hands he wrote with human words on earthly parchment, and yet those Words he wrote are the Words of Christ, your Savior, alive with His Spirit and full of His forgiveness for the salvation of sinners, including you.

So do the preachers of Christ Jesus, even now, speak with new tongues, so that you may be healed of your sins, set free from your demons, and raised from death to life. The lying tongue of the serpent shall not deceive you or mislead you, and his deadly poison shall not hurt you, not while you are guarded and kept by this preaching of Christ and His Gospel of forgiveness. Not because you never fall or fail, but because He is risen from the dead and He raises you up with Himself.

With His Word He has made of ordinary water a Baptism for you, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit. Believe it, and be saved.

Believe, too, that the same Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again, who called and sent Saint Mark to preach and publish the Gospel, and who reclined at the Table with His holy Apostles, making Himself known to them in the Breaking of the Bread — that same Lord Jesus Christ, by the same Word of the Gospel, reclines here at His Table with you, and He gives Himself to you here and now, His Flesh and Blood for your body and soul, in the same Breaking of the Bread.

His Word sounds from heaven here in this place through the mouth of His servant, and His holy arm stretches out to feed you from His own hand. There is no poison in His Cup. It is poured out as the Medicine of Life and Immortality, which He has brought to light through the Gospel.

By His precious Word, sweeter than honey, and by His Holy Sacrament, He reigns as your King.

All praise and thanks to Him for this great salvation, and for the gift of His servant, St. Mark, through whom He has caused His Word to be heard in your ears and your heart, unto eternal Life.

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

The One Who Believes and Is Baptized

St. Mark was an Evangelist, in the first place, because he was a preacher of the Gospel. He is said to have gone to Alexandria and preached the Gospel there. The Church identifies the Apostles and Evangelists with particular places, because the Gospel and the Church are historically grounded and located in real space and time. Christ has sent His preachers of the Gospel into all the earth, into the whole world, to make disciples of all nations, and yes, in fact, to preach the Gospel to all of creation, since all of creation is made new in the Resurrection of Christ, in His flesh and blood.

St. Mark is an Evangelist because he was such a preacher. But he is also one of those four holy Evangelists by whose hand the Lord has given us the written Gospel of Jesus, a record of our Lord’s words and actions, of all that Jesus began to do and teach. It is not only an historical record, but a theological treatise, and really nothing less than the preaching of Jesus, in which He is actively present, breathing His Holy Spirit upon His Church. These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you have life in Him.

St. Mark begins his record of the Holy Gospel — the Gospel of Jesus Christ — with the ministry of St. John the Baptist. He came in the wilderness preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, because the Kingdom of God was at hand in the Person of Christ Jesus.

Then Jesus came and submitted Himself to St. John’s Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And after He was driven out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days, He also began to preach, “Repent, and believe the Gospel, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Repent, therefore, each one of you. Believe the Gospel, and do not forget your Baptism, but daily wash yourself in it by way of repentance, by trusting the Word of Christ, by receiving His means of grace. Be put to death each day, and rise again with Christ each day.

Trust the Lord your God. Look to Him who is your Father, who has called you His own dearly beloved and well pleasing son. Look to Him who promises to give you all good things in Christ, and pray as He has taught you. Do not doubt but firmly believe that your prayer is heard and answered with a resounding “Yes and Amen!” in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead.

And that you may believe and pray in this way, hear and heed the Word of God. Rejoice to hear His Word and the preaching of it, the preaching of the Gospel, as St. Mark wrote by inspiration, and as your pastors to this day preach into your ears, into your heart, and into your body and life. This Word is true. It is Spirit, and it is Life. Do not doubt it. Be not unbelieving but believing; for he who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who disbelieves will be condemned.

But what does this mean? For all that Jesus has done, does it still come down to you? Must you figure out how to repent, and how to believe, and how to live by faith, lest it all be for naught?

Consider the example of those eleven disciples. They had already heard the testimony of Mary Magdalene and the other women. They had already heard the testimony of the two disciples who were on the Road to Emmaus and saw the risen Lord Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread. But they refused to believe the testimony of those witnesses, and Jesus rebuked them for their hardness of heart, just as He calls you to repent above all for your unbelief and hardness of heart.

But your Baptism does not rest upon your faith. The Lord Jesus does not stand upon your love. And the Kingdom of God does not depend on your repentance. Your faith rather stands on Christ, as it springs from the waters of His Baptism and relies upon His Gospel. And it is because the Kingdom of God first comes to you, that you are called to repent: Not only to sorrow for your sins and turn away from them, but to find shelter in this One who has come in the Name of the Lord.

He has come in the flesh as true Man. He has borne your sins and suffered your death. And He has done it all — He has lived and died for you — by faith in His God and Father. This Lord Jesus Christ has believed. This Lord Jesus Christ has been baptized, even unto death. And this Lord Jesus Christ has been saved from out of death and the grave through the Glory of God the Father.

Do not ever look for your salvation in yourself, not even in your own faith. You cannot choose to believe. You cannot will it. You cannot decide to do any such thing, for sin and death reign in your flesh until the Holy Spirit lays Christ upon your heart through the forgiveness of your sins.

It is the work of Christ that is credited to you as righteousness. It is the work of Christ that is given to you in the preaching and ministry of His Gospel. It is Christ who speaks to you through those whom He has called and sent in His Name. He forgives all your sins and grants you His Peace.

This, then, is the work of Christ, which He has done, and which He works in you. When Christ is preached to you as the One who believed and was baptized, who was crucified and raised, this work of Christ is worked in you. Thus are you called to faith through the narrow passage of the Cross. And so are you born again into newness of life. You are called out of darkness into His glorious Light. Where once there was nothing but doubt and fear and sadness, now there is joyful confidence in the One who was raised from the dead; for He has come to take up residence in you — through your ears and through your mouth, into your heart and mind, into your body and life.

He opens the Scriptures to you. Not that you should know the rules better and try harder to keep them, but that you should know them as fulfilled in Christ Jesus for you. As He has died, you also die with Him. As He is raised, you also are raised up with Him, to live with Him, now and forever.

Be encouraged in this life by the sort of men whom Jesus calls and sends. Men like Simon Peter, who denied his Lord in fear, and yet he was restored and sent as the prince of the Apostles. Men like Thomas, who doubted to begin with, but who was sent — not in doubt, but in confidence — to preach boldly until he also was put to death. And men like Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of the Church, the hater of Jesus, who was called to become His great champion to the Gentiles. He preached the Gospel to the ends of the earth in his day, until he too was martyred for the Gospel.

And then there’s Mark. Whether or not he was that rich young man who went away sorrowful, because of his many possessions, when he was first called to take up the Cross and follow after Jesus, we know that he disappointed the Apostle Paul by bailing out on their missionary journey.

Such are the men, fallible and flawed, weary, weak, and wounded, whom your crucified Savior raises up in His strength and sends in the way of His Cross to the glory of His Name. They have their doubts, they have their fears. They suffer hurt and pain and ridicule and persecution. They are even put to death, despised and rejected by men, though they are precious to God in Christ.

It is through such weakness, by and with the Cross, that the Gospel is preached to you. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is the preaching of repentance, which puts you to death, and destroys your self-confidence, and robs you of any claim to righteousness or merit or good works. It is a word that wounds you in order to heal you, and kills you in order to make you alive, because it is the Word of Christ the Crucified, who is also risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever.

This is the Word that is preached to you. And with this Word of Christ there are signs, which you cannot recognize by your eyes, but by the faith that God works in your heart you know what is going on here. By the waters of your Baptism, and by the forgiveness of your sins, all of your demons are cast out. All of your darkness is enlightened. All of your dirt is washed away.

When Jesus lays His hand on your head, and His servant speaks with that new tongue of the Gospel, “I forgive you all your sins in the Name and stead of Christ,” you know and believe that you are thereby healed. Your body is made ready for the resurrection on the last day. You shall not perish but have everlasting Life. You shall not die but live, in body and soul, forever and ever.

The deadly serpent’s sting has been undone. That old dragon, Satan, cannot harm you. He can still try and bite you. But it doesn’t stick. The sting of death is removed. The sting of sin is gone.

Nor is there any deadly poison in that overflowing Chalice which the Lord Jesus sets before you on His Table. It is rather His Blood of the New Testament, the Blood of Christ Jesus Himself, which He pours out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

When you have doubts, do not be afraid, and do not run away from God, but listen to His preaching of the Gospel. By this Word He keeps on loving you. He keeps on forgiving you. He keeps on coming to you. So does faith come by hearing, and hearing by this Word of Christ. And as you believe, so it is done. In fact, before you have called, God answers. And while you are yet speaking, already He is acting to save you — through men like Mark, pastors He has never failed to provide for His Church on earth. So are you and all the sheep of the Good Shepherd nurtured on the green pastures of His Gospel, refreshed by the living waters of His Baptism, and fed at His Table in His House, unto the resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of body and soul.

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

The Publication of the Gospel to the Nations

As we heard from the Evangelist St. John yesterday, from the closing chapters of his Holy Gospel, “These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, you may have Life in His Name.”

That likewise sums up the point and purpose of St. Mark’s Gospel, too, and the salutary reason for which we remember and give thanks for St. Mark the Evangelist on this appointed festival day.

The written Holy Gospels — of which St. Mark’s may well have been the first — became most necessary as it became clear that the Holy Apostles would not always be around and available in person.  So, for example, St. Peter wrote in his second Epistle that he would make provisions for his proclamation of the Gospel to continue even after his departure.  And that provision was then made available in the Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, written under the authority of St. Peter.  All for the sake of the forgiveness, faith, and life of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church.

Irrespective of the specific details of when and where he wrote it, St. Mark’s Gospel provides for, serves, and supports the continuation of the Holy Apostolic Ministry, the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and the Apostles’ preaching of the Gospel throughout the world to all of creation.

So, then, along with the other Holy Gospels, the inspired writing of St. Mark is the authority, the foundation, and the content of the pastoral ministry to this day, even to the close of the age.  All that I do as your pastor rests upon this Word that was written for the sake of your faith and life.

The substance and power of this Apostolic Ministry of the Gospel is Christ Jesus Himself, the Son of God in the flesh, crucified and risen from the dead.  Nowhere is that more clear than it is in the Gospel According to St. Mark, which focuses so tightly on the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus with comparatively little of His preaching and teaching.

What you hear and receive from St. Mark is Jesus in action.  The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown to gain.  For He is the Lion of Judah, who comes to tread the serpent and bitter death beneath His heel into the dust.  So it is that St. Mark preaches the Lord of Life hard at it, always moving, always doing.  A little less talk and a lot more action.  And all His active doing culminates in His voluntary suffering and death.  That is laid upon Him and done to Him, but He is no passive victim.  He knows where He is headed and what He is about.  He takes up His Cross willingly and lays down His life of His own accord.  So does He take it up again by strong faith in His Father.

St. Mark’s Gospel is especially devoted to the Cross.  It has been described as a Passion account with an introduction, and that is just about right.  This Evangelist offers a ringside commentary on that great fight of which we sing with Dr. Luther: “It was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended.  The victory remained with life; the reign of death was ended.”

But again, these things are written for the purpose that you also should believe and live in Christ Jesus; that you should be crucified and raised with Him through repentance and faith in His Word.  And St. Mark has done a masterful job of portraying that significance with his own life in mind.

By long-standing tradition, at least, and I am quite inclined to agree, St. Mark was that rich young man who once came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life.  As you will recall, he went away sorrowful following that first encounter, because he had many possessions and was reluctant to give them up in order to follow Jesus.  Yet, the Lord looked on him and loved him, and what was impossible for that young man or any other, was not impossible for the One who alone is good, who is true God and perfect Man.  Though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor.  He liquidated everything, including His Body and Life, in order to give you the Kingdom of God.

For St. Mark the Gospel is the Cross and Passion of the Christ, and so too for those who would be His disciples.  To live with Him in His Kingdom is to share His Cross and follow Him.  It is to be baptized with His Baptism, to be buried with Him through Baptism into His death, in order to share His Resurrection and His Life.  It is likewise to drink the Cup that He drinks, although for Him it is the Cup of God’s wrath and bitter woe, whereas for us it is the Cup of Blessing and Salvation.  He drinks it down to the dregs for us, in order to fill it to the brim and overflowing with His Blood of the New Testament, which He pours out for you and for the many for the forgiveness of sins.  So is He stripped naked on the Cross, that you should be clothed with His robes of righteousness.

This is what He has done in love for you and for St. Mark.  Consider that interesting side note in his Gospel, which the children find amusing, about that young man in the Garden of Gethsemane who slips out of his linen sheet and runs away naked at the onset of the Passion.  If this is the same young man who once declined to give up his riches, he has followed Jesus to the point of giving up everything now!  Yet, the Lord would not have His disciples found naked, but clothed with immortality.  As He once clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of sacrifice, so does the once-for-all Sacrifice of His own Flesh and Blood clothe all who are baptized in His Name.  His garments are removed and distributed to you, so that His nakedness and shame should fully cover yours.

And surely He has done it!  Indeed, the next time we hear of a “young man” in St. Mark’s Holy Gospel, he is sitting in the empty tomb from which the crucified Jesus has risen, “wearing a white robe.”  Yes, of course, it was an angel — one of two, actually — but St. Mark has recorded the historical facts with theological intent, and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he catechizes you in the significance of Holy Baptism.  The rich young man has been called to repentance, turned away from the idolatry of his many possessions to follow Christ Jesus to the Cross.  He has been stripped naked of all his own prideful self-righteousness, in order to be crucified, put to death, and buried with his Lord.  But now, behold, he emerges from the tomb in the Resurrection of that same Lord Jesus Christ, and he has been cleansed and clothed in the purity of that New Man.

With all of this in mind, and especially in view of the Holy Gospel for this festival day, it is clear that these things have been written for the proclamation and the hearing of the Word of Christ; that sinners be called to repentance, faith, and life in the Cross and Resurrection of the Son of God.

In particular, the publication of the Holy Gospel — the written record of Christ Jesus — aims to serve the administration of Holy Baptism in His Name.  As St. John the Baptist came preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and as St. Peter preached on Pentecost that the people should repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name, so has St. Mark written that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.  This promise is for you and for your children, for your body and your soul, and for your faith and life in Christ, both now and forever.

So does the Holy Gospel likewise serve the Office of the Keys and Holy Absolution, by preserving and declaring this special authority for the forgiving of repentant sinners in the Name and stead of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Though perhaps not as obvious as the gift of the Keys in St. John chapter twenty, it is no less certain in what St. Mark has written here: “In My Name,” Jesus says, “demons will be cast out, and upon the sick you will lay your hands, and they will be made well.”  For the healing of body and soul is bestowed, unto the Life everlasting, by the Holy Absolution of Christ.

With all of this, the Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, like that of the other holy Evangelists, serves the handing over of the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus — from one generation of the Church to the next; from pastor to people; from the Lord Himself to His disciples of all nations — for His Christians of all times and places to eat and to drink in faith and with thanksgiving, for the forgiveness of sins, unto the Resurrection of the body and the Life everlasting of body and soul.

As the crucified and risen Lord Jesus “appeared to the Eleven as they were reclining to eat at the table,” and He was there made known to them in “the Breaking of the Bread,” so does He reveal and give Himself to His people at His Table to this day, in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you and for the many.  His Holy Word and His Holy Supper — His Holy Flesh, His indestructible Life, and His great Salvation — these all belong together, given and received within His Church on earth as one sacred Tradition of His precious Gospel.

So it is, on the basis of the Word of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, especially as it has been recorded by the holy Evangelist Mark, that I preach to you on this day the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins in the Name and stead of Christ.  And here at His Table in His House I give to you His Body to eat and pour out for you His Blood to drink, that you should be strengthened and sustained in the one true faith, and that you should have eternal Life in Him.

In this Ministry of the Gospel, the Lord Himself is actively present and at work, confirming His Word with the sacred signs of water, bread, and wine, and giving you nothing less than Himself.

Who has believed this report?  To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  With man it is impossible, but not with God.  All things are possible with God.  He does it by His Gospel.  So has He done it by the Gospel of that beloved young man, St. Mark, by whose poverty many have now been made rich.  For his voice has gone out into all the earth, his words to the ends of the world.  How beautiful, indeed, are the feet of him who was sent with such glad tidings of good things.

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

How Sweet Is the Word upon Your Lips

You also have received the testimony of the Gospel, including that of St. Mark, that the Lord Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.  And yet, how often do you harden your heart and refuse to believe this Gospel?  Not so much that you would deny the historical facts concerning Jesus, His Cross and Resurrection, but that you do not take these things to heart for yourself, as your life and salvation.

But, now then, repent of your unbelief and hardness of heart!  For whoever does not believe shall be condemned — just as surely as you witness all the signs of condemnation, all the curse and consequences of sin, all around you in the world, and in your own mortal body and life.

Repent of your sin and sinful unbelief, which lead only to death and condemnation.

Repent, trust Christ, and live!  For His Gospel, His forgiveness, His salvation, and His Life are not only most certainly true, but they are most certainly for you.

Indeed, as the Lord has commanded, this Gospel is preached to all creation; for all of creation has been redeemed, and is sanctified and saved, by the Incarnation, Cross, and bodily Resurrection of the Son of God, our dear Lord Jesus Christ.

And have you not heard, how those very men whom Jesus first of all reproached for their unbelief, are then immediately sent to preach this saving Gospel to the world?  Already with those first disciples, with the Apostles themselves, the grace and mercy of God in Christ is demonstrated.

So also in the case of St. Mark, the Evangelist.  He, too, was called from sinful unbelief to faithful discipleship and holy service.  That would be the case, in any event, as a matter of course, as it is for every Christian; but all the more pointedly, if Mark were that rich young man, as many think, who was previously unable to give up his wealth to follow Christ; who later ran away naked and afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night when Jesus was handed over to His Cross.

It is by such men, who were so much in need of the Gospel, and who received it by the mercies of the Lord, that the Holy Gospel has been preached everywhere, ever since; and written down, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the preaching and administration of the Gospel in all times and places.  So that you, also, are here and now forgiven all your sins, unto faith and life and salvation.

It is by that Word of the Gospel that Christ is here with you, even as you recline here at His Table with Him.  He reproaches your unbelief by His preaching of repentance, it is true.  Not because He is here to condemn you; He is not.  But because He is here truly to save you, in body, soul, and spirit, for the resurrection and the life everlasting with Him.

He would have you believe these glad tidings of salvation.  And, to that end, He both grants to you and strengthens your faith in His Gospel.  Not only because it is true — Amen! It is! — but that you would be comforted in your weakness, doubt, and fear; and, that you would not despair and die in your sin, but live in peace and rest in Christ, your Savior.

Sin, death, the devil, and hell do not get to have you; nor are they permitted to have the last word concerning you.  The Lord Jesus, by His Cross and Resurrection, has shut that lion’s mouth, who would otherwise devour you with lies and bitter condemnation.

He has opened up, instead, the mouth of another lion, His servant, St. Mark, to publish peace to the ends of the earth by the proclamation of the Gospel, which is the Truth and blessed consolation.

That is the Word that is spoken, not only here and now to you, but by God Himself concerning you.

You are baptized into Christ.  In Him, by faith, you are saved.  For He has died your death, so that you are now raised up in His Resurrection.  Your sin is no longer against you, because you have died with Christ, and your life is safely hidden with Him at the Right Hand of your God and Father.

Sickness, suffering, and death are all finally powerless against you, because Christ is with you, who has risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever; and He is most certainly for you.  There is no poison in the Cup that He pours out for you.  He shall neither hurt nor harm you.  But He is your dread Champion, who has crushed that old serpent, your enemy, the devil, under His feet; who has sent the beautiful feet of His Apostles and Evangelists into all the world, to all creation, to speak with the new tongues of the Gospel, and to write with the skilled pen of His great mercy.

How sweet is this Word in your ear and in your heart, upon your lips and tongue, and in your body!

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