The Hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. For so it is that He glorifies the Father by His death, and so shall the Father glorify Him and His Cross by raising Him from the dead.
Would you see Him in this way, according to the Glory of His Cross? And would you know Him and love Him — and understand these things that He does — in the fear and wisdom of the Lord?
If so, then come up to worship at His Feast, for His Passover is at hand.
Go out to meet Him as He comes into His Holy City, and follow Him to His Cross and Passion. Hail Him as the Lord, your true King, your Savior and your God, and call upon His holy Name.
Do you desire to worship and serve Him? It is quite right that you should do so. But you cannot make a supper for Him, nor does He need your money. The poor you have with you always; therefore, help them and feed them as you are able and have opportunity. It is in the least of these, especially in your fellow Christians, that you exercise your love and care for the Lord Jesus.
But so also, it is in faith and love for Him, in the confidence of His Word and promises, that you recline here at His Table, where the Lord Jesus serves you and feeds you with His good gifts and benefits, and He fills up your poverty with His wealth. Already He has raised you from the dead; for He has called you both to and from the tomb through the waters of your Holy Baptism. He has brought you out of sin and death into His forgiveness and life, out of your darkness into His Light.
By His grace, you are His disciple. Therefore, listen to Him and learn from Him, that you might gain a heart of wisdom, and that you should begin to understand the things of God in Christ Jesus.
Where you have wandered away and gotten yourself lost, repent, and return now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soul. Follow in His footsteps in the Way that He goes to the Cross. And do not be dismayed, even though the whole world seeks to kill you for the sake of Jesus’ Name.
To be sure, it is a dangerous business to be raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus, and to eat and drink with Him at His Table. Envy and jealousy, fear and anger, pride and desperation, greed and paranoia — all rear their ugly heads against you from within and without. Even though you live, yet shall you die (or so it seems) because of Jesus.
But so it is that you learn from Him to bear the Cross in the light of His Resurrection. And just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall His Father raise you also from the dust of the earth, and give you life in body and soul, and glorify you forever in the Lord Jesus Christ. Your confidence before both God and man are the same as His, because His Resurrection and His Righteousness are yours by His grace through faith in His Word of the Gospel.
Nothing at all can hurt you forever, nor can anything destroy you, so long as you abide in the Body of Christ Jesus. Whoever believes and is baptized in His Name shall be saved. For He receives and bears the Holy Spirit in His Body on your behalf (from His Baptism to His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead), in order to pour out the living and Life-giving Spirit of God upon you through the forgiveness of all your sins and with the Spiritual Food of His Body and His Blood.
You recline here at His Table with Him as one who has died with Him, whose life is safely and securely hidden with Christ in God. For as surely as He raised Lazarus from the grave, so has He raised you up from the waters of your Holy Baptism to faith and life in Him; and so shall He raise you up in His Glory at the last and give you life forevermore. For by His stripes you are healed, and by His Voice of the Gospel He calls you by name out of the tomb into the Life everlasting.
The sweet perfume of His costly Sacrifice fills this House where you are gathered with His Peace, and it rises like incense with your prayers to our Father in heaven. For the Lord Jesus Christ ever lives to intercede for you within the Most Holy Place, even as He remembers you here in His Sanctuary with His own Body and Blood. He has befriended you in steadfast love, and whether you live or die you are His own. Thus do you live and believe in Him, and so shall you never die.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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