Christ Jesus Builds His Church Upon the Ministry of His Gospel

The Wise Man has built His House upon the Rock.

The almighty and eternal Son of the living God has come down from heaven, and He has taken for Himself our human Flesh and Blood from the womb of His Blessed Mother, in order to give His Body and Life as a Ransom for the many.  He has entered into our pagan territory of sin and death, and here in our stead He has defeated our ancient enemy, that old dragon, the devil or Satan.

By His Sacrifice upon the Cross, the Lord Jesus Christ has atoned for the sins of the whole world, reconciled all of us to His God and Father in heaven, and thereby destroyed death, released us from the fear of death, and removed all the power of the devil, namely, sin and guilt and accusation.

He has plundered the grave and Hades of their dead, and in His own bodily Resurrection He has opened the gates of heaven to all who believe and are baptized in His holy Name.

It is by this precious Gospel of Christ Jesus — by His forgiveness of sins and the great Salvation of His Cross and Resurrection — that He establishes, builds, and protects His Church on earth, from Jerusalem to the ends of the world, that disciples from all nations might have Life in Him.

Whoever lives and abides within His Church, even now bearing His Cross in faith and hope, is safe and secure from sin, death, the devil, and hell, and shall live and abide forever with the same Lord Jesus Christ in Paradise.  For He is indeed the Wise Man who has built His House upon the Rock.  The winds rage, the rains downpour, the floods rise and pummel that House, but it shall not fall.

Why, then, would you drown and die outside of His House in the midst of the storm?

The problem that confronts the flesh and blood of your old Adam and the whole sinful world in which you live, is that the Wise Man appears to be, not wise, but foolish; and the Rock foundation of His Christian Church appears to be, not solid and secure, but shifting sand.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, the “Son of Man,” appears to be nothing more than a man like any other.  Extraordinary, yes; a great Prophet, perhaps; a good and righteous man, no doubt; and a powerful preacher.  But surely not the Son of God.  No one is able to perceive or to believe who and what He truly is by means of their mortal flesh and blood or their fallen human reason.

And when He is crucified, put to death, and buried; executed as a criminal; hung upon a cursed tree in naked shame and humiliation; and laid to rest within a borrowed tomb, where is God in all that?

Where is the power and might of the glory of God in His Cross and Passion?  Where is the promise of His coming?  And where do you ever see or feel or experience His Resurrection and His Life?

He says that the gates of Hades shall not be able to overpower His Church.  But what are you to make of the fact that you and your loved ones, your family and friends and fellow Christians, are all subject to death and finally return to the dust, whether by way of illness, old age, or martyrdom.

Where is your hope, your life, and your salvation?  Where is the living God who can help you and save you from death and the grave, who will actually bring you out of Hades into His Heaven?

The Church appears to be a pitiful fortress indeed, little more than a fisherman’s shack upon the seashore.  After all, its so-called “Rock” foundation is nothing but the Ministry of the Gospel, that is, the preaching of repentance, the spoken word of forgiveness, the washing of water with the Word, and the administration of bread and wine in the remembrance of Jesus who was crucified.

And what sort of men are actually called and sent to preach and administer this Gospel?  Sinners, the lot of them!  Men like Simon Peter and Paul of Tarsus — the one a wavering denier of Christ, and the other a former diehard Pharisee, a persecutor of Jesus and His followers.

Pastors to this very day and age are likewise quarried from the same Rock.  They, too, are sinners, each and every one of them, in need of forgiveness for their own sins.  They are mortals, just like you, subject to death and the grave.  Finite, flawed, and frail creatures of flesh and blood.

And what keys do they bring, what instruments and means by which they are to help and save you?  With what do they come to set you free from the death-grip of sin and to open the gates of heaven to you?  By what power and authority are they supposed to keep you safe from the devil and hell?

They have nothing but the Gospel, which is the Word of Christ Jesus and His forgiveness of sins.  It is admittedly pathetic and pitiful to all appearances, seemingly impotent to meet all your needs.  Nor can you perceive or believe otherwise about any of this by any intellect or wisdom of yours.

The truth is that you cannot recognize the Lord Jesus Christ for who He is, nor can you come to Him, nor are you at all able to love and trust in Him, unless the Father reveals Him to you, and gives Him to you, and lays Him upon your heart by His Word and Holy Spirit.

But all of this the Father surely does for you, according to His tender mercies and steadfast loving-kindness, by way of that very Cross of Christ Jesus and that preaching of His Gospel which appear to all the world — and to your own fallen flesh — to be so foolish and miserable and weak.

You could not possibly open your eyes wide enough to see it.  But He has opened your eyes in faith by the Light of His Word, that is, by the Gospel of His forgiveness of all your sins.

You could not even begin to open your heart or your head to accept it.  But He has opened your ears to hear, your mind to understand, your heart to believe, and your lips to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who has become your Savior, your Strength, and your Song.

The Word of Christ that His servants speak to you in His Name is His Word upon their lips.  The Sacraments they administer in His stead, in remembrance of Him, are His own Gifts of Life and Salvation for you.  Their forgiveness of your sins is His forgiveness, as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ your dear Lord dealt with you Himself.  Truly, this is how He cares for you.

And this Word of forgiveness, this Holy Absolution, this free and full forgiveness of all your sins — although it seems like such a still small voice against the rage and roaring of the devil — it is a most solid foundation of a truly mighty fortress, which shall not fall nor fail to preserve your life.

Where sin is forgiven, the devil cannot accuse you, and even God’s own Law does not condemn you anymore forever.  There is no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.

Where sin is forgiven, death no longer has any rightful claim on you, but it must relinquish you, body and soul, unto Christ your Redeemer, who has purchased you with His very own lifeblood.

Where sin is forgiven — and your sin is forgiven by the Word of Christ — there is only Life and Salvation.  Come hell or high water against you, these cannot touch you, they shall not reach you.

You shall not die but live.  The gates of Hades shall not prevail against you.  For you belong to the Body of Christ, His Holy Church; and just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever in His own Body, so are you raised up by His Ministry of the Gospel to live with Him eternally.

His death has been the death of death, the devil’s defeat, and hell’s destruction, and all of this on your behalf.  Therefore, His Resurrection from the dead is your resurrection, and His own Life is yours forevermore.  So has He spoken, and so shall it be.  His Word abides unto Life everlasting.

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

The Son of Man Comes to Save You by His Grace

The Son of Man has come, not to destroy you, but to save you.  And this great work of Salvation He has accomplished and obtained for you by the “ascension” of His Cross, that is to say, by His being lifted up from the earth in sacrificial death upon the Cross, bearing all your sins in His own Body and making full Atonement for them by His holy and precious Blood.  He has thus redeemed you for Himself, He has purchased and won you for Himself, for life with Him in His Kingdom.

He has redeemed you from your sin, from your mortality and death, and from the devil’s power.  And beyond all of that, He has reconciled you to His God and Father, who is now your own dear God and Father in Him.  The Lord Jesus has opened heaven and eternal Life to you — and to all who believe and are baptized in His Name — by His Resurrection and Ascension, by the power of His own indestructible Life.  Indeed, as you are baptized into Him, as you receive and bear His Cross in your body and life as a Christian here on earth, His Resurrection and Ascension are also your resurrection and ascension — unto the Father in heaven — by grace through faith in Jesus.

And all of this great Salvation is given to you, and it becomes yours, as the Lord Jesus sends His messengers before His face, also here and now to you, “to make arrangements for Him.”  Here in this place they preach His Word, they work His works in His Name.  They proclaim the Gospel of Peace and Life and Salvation, which are yours through His gracious forgiveness of all your sins.

By this preaching and Ministry of the Gospel, Christ Jesus Himself, your dear Lord and Savior, comes to you and gives Himself to you with all His grace and benefits.  The Kingdom of God is here among you, because the Lord Jesus is here with you by His Word and Holy Spirit and with His Flesh and Blood.  And here He calls you to take up His Cross and follow after Him in holy faith and love, to live with Him in His Kingdom in His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

So it is that you do live by His grace as you give attention to His Word and the preaching of it, as you hear and receive His mercy, peace, and love, His Life, and His Salvation in the Liturgy of His Gospel.  Again this morning, right here and now, in this very preaching, by this Word in your ears, He returns you to the grace and waters of your Holy Baptism by putting you to death and raising you to life, by chastening you with His Law and healing you with His Gospel.

The Lord who loves you does everything for you in love.  He calls you to repentance and He brings you to contrition for your sins, in order to heal you from the inside-out and make you brand new through His Holy Absolution.  He hears your confession with tender compassion, He graciously receives your broken and contrite heart, and He freely and fully forgives you all of your sins, so that not one of them is held against you any longer.  And even as He takes away your sins and removes that dark and heavy burden from you, He gives to you His own living and Life-giving Body and Blood, that He should live and abide in you, and you in Him, unto the Life everlasting.

Christ be praised for His grace, mercy, and love, for His Word and Holy Spirit, whereby He has made you His disciple and continues to preserve your faith and life in the midst of sin and death.

But given all of that — which is most certainly true! — how is it that you still so often, even daily, fail to follow Jesus, to live as He has lived for you, and to think and speak and act as He does?

Under the sway of your desires and the hungers of your heart, mind, and flesh for the things of this fallen and perishing world, you refuse to receive your Lord and follow after Him according to His Word, because you would prefer to have Him only on your own terms — or not at all.

There are so many things that you cherish and depend on, and so many things that you desperately long to have and to hold!  But here comes Jesus with His forgiveness of sins and with the same old unimpressive means of grace.  And how are these to help you?  He lays the Cross upon you, and it is heavy, it hurts.  So you refuse to receive Him, this crucified God, as the blessed Savior from sin that He is, because you insist upon a god and savior of your own making, in your own image.

Along the same lines, you deny the grace and mercy of God and the peace of His forgiveness to your neighbor.  You do not love your neighbor as yourself, as you should, and you do not serve your neighbor and forgive your neighbor’s trespasses against you, because, falsely supposing that you live by a merit and righteousness of your own, by your own choices and decisions, by your own works and efforts and accomplishments, you insist upon such a righteousness of works also in others, and you seek to impose that impossible standard upon them.  In short, you demand that life be lived according to the Law, apart from and instead of the Christian Gospel.  Consequently, you seek retaliation and revenge instead of repentance and reconciliation with your neighbor

All such things (and more) are part of your refusal to let go and leave behind the things of the flesh, the things of this world, the things you crave so badly and cling to so desperately.  You keep looking back over your shoulder at all those things you are so afraid to leave behind — like Lot’s wife looking back to Sodom — instead of eyes forward to follow after the Lord Jesus Christ.  Instead of letting go of your idols and putting far away from you the false gods of your sinful flesh, you tragically let go of, turn away from, and leave behind the Cross of Christ, your Savior.

Of yourself, therefore, and left to yourself, you surely are not worthy of God’s Kingdom; for His Kingdom is founded upon and centered in the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus.  Apart from His Cross, there is no forgiveness of sins, there is no Life, there is no Salvation, and there is no hope.

Repent of your idolatrous unbelief.  Repent of your selfishness, your self-centeredness, and above all your self-righteousness.  Leave the dead to bury the dead.  Put your hand, instead, upon the plow to which the Lord has called you, no matter how onerous it may be; and do not look back any more at what lies behind, neither your sins nor your idols.  Wherever you are, wherever you go, confess and proclaim the good things of God in Christ — good things both for you and for your neighbor — good things even for those neighbors who aren’t particularly pleasant or polite.

Plow the field that God has given you, and do so in the confidence that Christ Jesus has come, not to destroy you — nor does He lay His Cross upon you to destroy you — but He comes with His Cross and the Fruits of His Cross to save you.  His messengers are sent before His face, also here and now to you, not to call down fire and brimstone upon your sorry head, but rather to preach the Gospel to you, and by that preaching to give you the Kingdom of God in Christ.  They speak and bestow the Peace of the Lord upon you, by the speaking of forgiveness in His Name and stead.

You are not worthy of God’s Kingdom, that is true.  But the Lord here bestows His worthiness upon you.  His own righteousness is given to you and credited to you, so that it is yours by grace through faith in Him, by fatherly goodness and mercy, for the sake of His divine and holy Love.

Even when the Lord speaks and applies His Law to you, He does even this in love for you, in order to call you back from your sin and death, back to Himself and to His Life.  He desires nothing so much as for you to live with Him in peace and love.  Thus, He does all things for you for the sake of His Gospel, for the sake of forgiving your sins and giving you this Life with Him forever.

See what love the Father has for you, that He has given His only Son to die for you.  And see what love the Son has for you, that He has willingly borne all of your sins, the Cross and death for you, so that you inherit His Kingdom as a beloved and well-pleasing son of His own God and Father.

There is no greater treasure in heaven or on earth to compare with this dear Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves you and has freely given Himself for you, who graciously gives Himself to you — His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, for your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit, now and forever.

Receive this Gift — receive this dear Lord Jesus Christ — in the blessed faith and confidence that no greater love exists than His Love for you, the Love of God in Christ which is for you.  Nothing shall ever be able to separate you from that Love, nor from Him who loves you.  No matter how much you may waver and falter, He remains faithful.  He is steadfast, sure, and certain, and He is for you.  He has not come to destroy you.  He has come to save you.

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

The Love of God for You in Christ Jesus

With this Holy Gospel, we are in the Upper Room with Christ and His Apostles on the night when He was handed over to His voluntary suffering and death.  He has already fed them with His Body and His Blood, as He feeds you from this Altar with those same Gifts of Himself.  He has already humbled Himself as the Servant of all to wash the feet of His disciples, as He has cleansed you in the waters of Holy Baptism.  And at this point He is being sold out for cash by one of His own.

Such is the all-important context and setting of this Gospel.  If you absent yourself from this Upper Room, then you will not understand the Word that Jesus here speaks to you.  Apart from His Holy Supper, His Words of Love and Peace are distorted and spun out of context.  And if you forget the washing of the water with His Word, then you return to your sins and remain in them — without hope, without comfort, and without the Holy Spirit.  And if Christ Jesus were not handed over to His Sacrifice on the Cross, then all of this (and everything else in the world) would be for nothing.

In truth, none of the Words of Jesus, nor any of the Holy Scriptures, should be heard without some reference to the Ministry of the Gospel and the Means of Grace: to the waters of Holy Baptism, to the spoken word of Holy Absolution, and to the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood.

All the more so in this present case, because these are the very things that Christ was giving to His Apostles for His Church as He was being handed over to His Cross and Passion.  Indeed, they are the Means whereby the grace of His Cross is ever given to His Church on earth.  What is more, they are the ways and means whereby the Love of God in Christ is given to you and shared with you — whereby you are taught to love Christ Jesus and to love your neighbors as Christ loves you.

The Holy Gospel set before you this morning is but one small portion of the Lord’s catechesis of His disciples on the cusp of His Passion.  Apart from that context, it would be easy enough to hear and interpret the Words of Jesus in a human-centered way, as though everything depended on you, on your decisions, your commitments, your efforts and achievements, your love and obedience.

After all, what is it that Jesus says? “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word.”  And on that basis alone, you might well suppose that everything begins with your love for Jesus and with your keeping of His Word.  What is more, you would likely hear and understand this “Word” of Jesus with reference to His Commandments and to the Law of God.  And to be sure, there are commands and laws of the Lord to be kept in faith toward Him and in fervent love for Him and for others.  But to focus on His Word of the Law, especially in this case, would be to miss the main point.

It is fundamental to note the way St. John begins his account of that Maundy Thursday evening: “When Jesus knew that His Hour had come, that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

And what follows immediately is the Feast of the New Testament Passover, the washing of the disciples’ feet, and the betrayal of Judas.  Which is to say that everything begins — not with you or anything you might do — but with Jesus and His Love and His obedience to the Father, even to His death upon the Cross.  Absolutely everything depends upon Christ Jesus.  As St. John writes in his First Epistle, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”  And He loves you to the end.

Thus, one of the first and most important points to this Holy Gospel is the critical centrality and fundamental necessity of Jesus: You love Him, and you keep His Word, because there are no other options, no other hope, no other way, truth, or life, and no other fountain and source of true Love.

And that real true Love of God in Christ Jesus, your Lord, is what you need most of all.  It is for the sake of that divine Love that you have been created, that you should first of all be loved by the Lord your God and receive His gracious gifts of Life, and that you should love as He loves you.

It was for the sake of this divine Love that God created the heavens and the earth and all things — not out of any necessity, but in the freedom of His perfect holiness He chose to share His Love with others outside of Himself.  Such Love comprises the very Being and Nature of the one true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, in the Communion of the Holy Spirit from all eternity.  But as the Father desired to share His Love for the Son with others, He created all things for the sake of that Love — and Man in particular.

Accordingly, it was not good for the Man to be alone.  For Man, created in the Image of God, was created for Love; and to manifest the true divine Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he needed to have his own beloved counterpart.  So, the Lord created the Woman from the Man, and brought her to the Man, and gave her to him as a companion and helpmate.  In the mutual love between the man and his wife, the everlasting Love between the Father and the Son is reflected.  And in the loving bonds of holy marriage are the seeds of every other human relationship of love.

It’s no secret, though, that sin has brought animosity, jealousy, and countless divisions into the human experience of love.  Even the best relationships are not immune to bitterness and hostility.  Even the best marriages are not everything they should be, whereas others erode into an empty and loveless charade.  Families are dispersed, and parents and children, brothers and sisters become increasingly distant and estranged.  If not for the grace of God, there would be no love left at all.

But just as Love has from all eternity resided in the divine Life of the Holy Triune God, so do the remedy for sin and the restoration of Love originate and emerge from within the very heart of God.  Because God the Father’s Love for His creation is an exercise and expression of His Love for God the Son, He has not permitted it to fall completely into hatred and devastating ruin, but has taken it upon Himself to fix what Man has broken.  He has reestablished and renewed His own divine Love within His creation by sending His own beloved Son into this world — on the one hand, to bear the curse and destruction of sin; and on the other hand, to bring the Son’s perfect Love for the Father in the Holy Spirit into human flesh and blood, thereby restoring the Image of God in Man.

Now, to be sure, the Love of God in Christ Jesus is uniquely manifested in His voluntary suffering and death upon the Cross.  There the one true God loved you and all the fallen children of Man with the depth of His own Being, laying down His Life on behalf of sinners — the Father giving up His own dear Son, the Son willingly submitting to the agony of His bloody Passion.  Nowhere else in all the world has Love ever been more perfect and complete, more faithful and unflinching.

Even so, as unique and all-sufficient as the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus was, it is indicative of that divine, eternal Love which never ends; accordingly, the Love of God in Christ Jesus continues in the preaching of His Cross, in the distribution of the Fruits of His Cross, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead.  And here, again, we must consider the context of this Holy Gospel; for you cannot love Christ Jesus or keep His Word, nor can you even know Him or come to Him, except by His coming to you, abiding with you, and pouring out His Spirit upon you.  And that is the Love of God with which He loves you in the same Means of Grace that Jesus shared with His disciples on that first Maundy Thursday evening.

God the Father comes to you in the Person of His incarnate Son, in order to make His home with you in the Flesh, as the Lord Jesus comes to you with His Body and His Blood in His Holy Supper.  Indeed, that Holy Sacrament of the Altar is what makes this building of brick and wood a genuine “House of God,” because the very Son of God is thereby present in this place.  And even more to the point at hand, the same Lord Jesus Christ gives Himself into your mouth, into your body, and thereby makes His home, His dwelling place, in you.  Hence, your body is truly a temple of God.

Do you want to learn from Christ Jesus to love others as He loves you?  To love your husband or wife, your parents and children, and your other neighbors as God commands?  Then, by all means, allow the Flesh and Blood of Jesus to feed and nurture your own flesh and blood in His Image.

Along with His Flesh and Blood, it is also by and with the Spirit of Christ Jesus that you are loved by God and learn to love both Him and your neighbors.  And to that end, the Holy Spirit is given to you by God the Father in the Name of His Son, in the Word of Christ Jesus — likewise in the washing of the water with His Word, as He washed the feet of His disciples on that night when He was handed over to His Cross and Passion.  So were you anointed with the Spirit of the Father in His Son in the waters of your Holy Baptism; which means that one and the same Holy Spirit, the personal Bond of divine Love between the Father and the Son, binds you in Love to the Father and the Son.  And the Spirit is the One who teaches you and actually enables you to love the Lord with all your heart and soul, to keep His holy Word in faith, and to love your neighbors as yourself.

The Holy Spirit “teaches you all things” in the preaching of the Holy Gospel, as the Lord Jesus promised His Apostles, and as He has faithfully fulfilled throughout the History of His Church on earth.  So, too, as a called and ordained servant of Christ Jesus, the Word that I preach to you in His Name is not mine but His, which the Father has given me to speak by His Spirit on the basis of the Holy Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles.  And by this Divine Word of the Gospel, you are given to know the Love of God as it has been lived and revealed in the Life of Christ Jesus.

The Holy Spirit likewise reminds you of all things pertaining to Christ Jesus, not only by the catechesis of His Word, but also in the celebration of His Holy Supper.  For as often as we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, the holy Body and precious Blood of Christ, the Spirit leads you to remember and confess His Cross and Passion, His Resurrection and Ascension.  And it is by the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus that you eat His Body and drink His Blood in repentance and faith, with joyful thanksgiving, and to your abundant blessing.  It is no amount of piety or preparation on your part that does it; but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father bestows upon you in the Name of His Son, enables you to commune in the righteousness and holiness of Christ Jesus.

And as you thus receive and participate in His sacrificial Body and Blood from His Cross, you begin to live as He has risen and lives for you; to love as He loves you; to forgive as He forgives you; and to sacrifice yourself for others, as He has sacrificed Himself for you and for all people.

In all of these things, there is also the beautiful promise of Peace in the Words of Christ Jesus — my confirmation verse — echoed in the Words of Christ following His Resurrection from the dead (in the Upper Room once more), when He appeared to His disciples and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; and if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  Thus, the Peace that Jesus gives by His Holy Spirit in the spoken Word of Holy Absolution is the true Peace of forgiveness and Life in His Cross and Resurrection.  Not as the world gives — a false sense of security in material possessions or fleeting success — but the genuine security of a Life hidden with Christ in God.

And so it is that, by the ways and means of His Word and Sacraments in the Liturgy of His Gospel, you are able to endure in the Peace of Christ Jesus in steadfast faith, confident hope, and divine Love — even as you bear the Cross in this mortal life on earth.

Sadly, it is true that, as you live by the self-sacrificing Love of God in Christ Jesus, this fallen and perishing world around you — and sometimes even your nearest and dearest neighbors — will nail you to the Cross, as it were, and otherwise spurn your love.  But as you are given the Word and example of Christ Jesus — and better yet, as He gives you Himself and His Spirit — you are able to believe and trust and cling to Him.  And in His Love for you — with which He loves you to the end — having made His Home with you, having poured out His Spirit upon you, and having made you a beloved and well-pleasing child of God, He will bring you safely Home to the Father forever.

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