Easter II [John 20:19-31] (24-Apr-2022)

         

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

This wonderful Gospel that we have read today begins in a way that strikes us as a bit strange: it begins with fear. We read that the disciples were altogether there on the evening of Easter Sunday, on the evening when Jesus rose from the dead, and the doors were locked and they were fearful, they were scared of the Jews.

Later on, we can go and read in the Book of Acts how the disciples went and preached with boldness and confidence and fearlessly, but here there is no boldness and confidence—there is only fear.

This is important because we have to realise that Jesus did not choose his twelve disciples because they were confident and bold and fearless. No – he chose them in all their hopelessness, in all their uselessness, in all their fear.

But you see, Jesus doesn’t want disciples who are already strong and confident in themselves. People like that are no use to him. Jesus only chooses weak people and then when he gives the Holy Spirit, he gives all the strength that the disciples need.

This is so important – but we might ask: Are the disciples really all that weak? Well, they didn’t always think so. When Jesus was going on his way to die and before he was arrested, the disciples said: we are going to be strong for you, Jesus. We are going to make a decision to follow you, Jesus. Peter says: Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away. Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And we read: And all the disciples said the same.

But Jesus has a different plan for them. He says: You will all fall away because of me this night...but he also gives them a wonderful promise of comfort and says, but after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.

And so what happens to the disciples? As soon as the first sign of danger comes and the crowd comes with swords and clubs, they all run away. And then Peter also denies Jesus three times. And we read that when the rooster crowed to remind Peter of Jesus’ prophecy, Jesus turns from the other side of the room and looks at him. And Peter goes out and weeps bitterly. He goes outside and cries like a baby.

Jesus turns and looks at Peter as if to say to him: You are a sinner, and I am your Saviour. There is only one Lamb of God and that is me—it is not you. I do not need you to come and die with me—I will die by myself and I will be the Saviour of the world. And if you are going to be saved by me, you cannot be a Saviour with me—you must be a sinner. There’s only two possibilities in Christ’s church—there’s only two categories. Either we have to be a Saviour, or we have to be a sinner. If we are a Saviour, then we are a church withoug Jesus. It’s as if to say: Who needs Jesus, if we are here? But if we believe that we are sinners, then we are a church with a living Jesus.

And so, here we see the disciples gathered together and they are scared. They have locked the doors to hide themselves from the Jewish people. Jesus was dead, and he was crucified—maybe they thought—we are next. And so our reading begins with these disciples gathered together, fearful, failures, sinners.

And then a wonderful thing happens. Jesus arrives. Jesus came and stood among them and says to them: Peace be with you. I have died for you. I have made peace between you and God through my blood, and now I have risen from the dead and come and bring my peace to you.

Now, how did Jesus get into the room if the doors were locked? He didn’t break the door down. He simply came and stood there. Jesus has a human body and he is a real man. Normally, a man can’t walk through a wall or a door. But Jesus is also true God and he can do whatever he wants. Already, he had walked through a closed door. When he rose from the dead, the angel rolled the stone away, not to let Jesus out, but to show that he wasn’t there. Jesus had already risen from the dead, and now he had walked out of the tomb through the closed tomb.

And now, on Easter Sunday evening, Jesus walks in through a closed door, and he says: Peace be with you. Maybe the disciples thought—this is a ghost. Maybe they thought—only ghosts can walk through doors and through walls. But then Jesus shows them that he is not a ghost. We read: When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Maybe the disciples thought—“We are failures! We have let Jesus down—and now his ghost has come to punish us!” No—Jesus doesn’t say, “You rotten fools—now I’ve got you!” He says: Peace, peace be with you. And he shows them where this peace comes from: he shows them his hands and his side. Jesus shows them the wounds that bled for them and in the wounds of Jesus, we have all the peace we need.

What a wonderful gift! What a wonderful Saviour we have here! What a gentle, loving shepherd we have who comes and speaks his peace to his sheep. Even today, Jesus comes and stands among us—he enters through the doors and the walls to stand right here. And he meets with you with all your sin and with all your failure and all your guilt. But Jesus wants you to know that he is here—so he makes sure that you know this by speaking to us. Jesus puts his pastor here to speak not his opinions, but the words of Jesus. He speaks: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He speaks: I forgive you all your sins. He speaks: Take, eat, this is my body given for you, and my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus has walked through closed doors, and now as true God and true man he walks into the bread and wine through his word, to speak and to bring his peace to you. What a wonderful Lord Jesus we have! We read: the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

Now, we read something very special. It says: Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

I remember hearing from a friend of mine how he was walking with someone around North Adelaide. And my friend was trying to encourage the other person in their faith. And they came to St Peter’s Cathedral up there and were going to walk past it, but my friend said: Why don’t we go inside and we can say a prayer together. And the person said to him, “I can’t go in there! The walls would fall down on me. The roof would cave in on my head.” And my friend said, “No—Jesus is here, and we can go in with him.” And so they linked arms, the two people, and they went into the church together.

This reminds me of our reading here. If we are going to enter into God’s presence, anyone would think he would destroy us. God is perfect—we are not. Even if there were the tiniest drop of sin, God should destroy us and punish us. A cup of water with one drop of poison needs to be thrown out. But, there’s more than a drop—don’t you know it? Our whole heart, our whole life, all our thinking has been poisoned by Satan, and we have no right to come to God and enter into his presence, and to pray, and to be saved and go to heaven. We sinners have no right.

The only way any of these things are going to work is if Jesus actually forgives us. And he does. And now, he sends his apostles out everywhere to speak this forgiveness. Jesus is true God, and when he speaks forgiveness, this is God the Father’s forgiveness, and it comes with all the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so now, Jesus gives the same Holy Spirit to the apostles. He breathes on them and says: Receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus and the Father have linked arms. Everything they do they do together. And now Jesus says, As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And so now, Jesus links arms with the apostles. They are going to speak the word of Jesus. Whoever hears them is going to hear Jesus. St John says: We are from God. Whoever listens to God listens to us; whoever is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

And so now, we pastors—what are we supposed to preach and teach? Well, we link arms with the apostles and we speak the same thing they did. And when we speak the word of the apostles, then we are speaking the words of Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit. And all of us who come and listen in the church? How do you know that this word you are speaking is from the Holy Spirit? Well, this word must be the same word that Jesus gave Peter, James and John, and all the apostles to speak.

But Jesus doesn’t send them out to say anything. He sends them out and said: If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.

Now, are the apostles called to be tyrants and to say—today, I’m going to forgive you. But not you! No—they are called to administer this forgiveness—but with a proper basis, not according to their own ideas. So what is this basis?

Well, let me say something about the devil. The Word of God comes with all the power of the Holy Spirit. But the devil’s power also comes from God’s Word—but from twisting it. So in the Garden of Eden, God spoke His Word to Adam and says: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. And then the devil comes and says: Did God really say? He sows doubt in God’s word. And then he twists it so that it says exactly the opposite of what God says. The devil says: You will not surely die.

And so, when we look at God’s commandments, we say: Jesus, I was wrong, but you are right. I am a sinner, you are my Saviour. If this is what we say, then Jesus promises his forgiveness to us. And he says to us: You are a sinner—that’s true. But I have a new word to speak to you—the forgiveness of sins. And I don’t want you to imagine this forgiveness. I want you to hear it. I’m going to put this word into your pastor’s mouth, so that his forgiveness is my forgiveness.

But if we want to say: no—God’s commandments are wrong and I am right, if we say—no God, you need to change your commandments, and listen to me, then we don’t need Jesus. And if we don’t need Jesus, there’s no forgiveness for you. And Jesus puts this word into the mouth of his pastors too—he wants people to be called to repentance.

But then, maybe we think—I am weak in faith, I want to do better, but I keep on falling. I’m not a good Christian yet, maybe Jesus rejects me.—Don’t despair. The devil doesn’t want you to know and feel your sin. Only Christians know this—and if you worry about your sin, then this forgiveness if sor you, in fact, it’s precisely for people like you. Jesus has risen from the dead. He has won this forgiveness for you with his blood and with his wounds. He has died a sinner’s death so that he can link arms with you and present you to the Father. Now he wants to show you his wounds, and remind you of them, that these hands, these feet, this side shed the holy and precious blood that paid for each and every single sin. But this wonderful fact is not kept quiet in heaven. Jesus wants God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus doesn’t simply want the angels to know that he died for you—he wants this forgiveness to be spoken to you, so that you can hear it and believe it. And when in all your weakness, you hear your weak, sinful pastor say to you, “I forgive you all your sins”, then you can be certain that this is God’s will on earth as in heaven. You have everything you need and you can go in peace.

You were baptised for the forgiveness of sins. We are going to receive Christ’s body and his blood today. But what are these things for? They are given for you and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

But one last thing. Thomas was not there. And he thinks—I’d like to have this forgiveness too, but I don’t want pretend forgiveness. I don’t want a false prophet who says, “Peace, peace, where there’s no peace.” There’s no forgiveness if Jesus’ bones are still in the tomb. A dead Jesus is no use—and a ghost is no use. If you say you saw Jesus, I want to make sure it’s the real one.

So Thomas says: Unless I see in his hand the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

Thomas! Come on! Isn’t it enough for you to see Jesus, but you want to stick your finger in his wounds and have a poke around!

And so, Jesus comes again next Sunday, one week later. And Jesus repeats his words: Peace be with you.

And then he says to Thomas: Put your finger here; and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.

All the time Thomas was whinging and complaining, Jesus was there, listening to it. Jesus knew exactly what Thomas wanted to do and now he lets him do exactly what he wanted. And so what does Thomas find in Jesus wounds? What does he find in there when he has a poke around? Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. And we don’t want to put our finger in Jesus’ wounds—we want to hide our whole bodies and souls, and everything that we have in those wounds. In baptism, we enter into those wounds, and in the Lord’s Supper, we draw all of the blessings from them. We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

And so Thomas makes a wonderful confession of faith. My Lord and my God! Jesus is a true man with real wounds, born of the Virgin Mary, but he is also true God, raised from the dead, and filled with all the living power of the Holy Spirit to forgive your sin.

And no, here at the end, we learn something very special. Everyone who ever lives after the apostles is going to have take their word for it that Jesus rose from the dead. The difference between the apostles and we pastors today is this: I have not seen Jesus risen from the dead, but the apostles did and were sent to give an eyewitness. So when they went out they said: We have seen the Lord. But we say: The apostles saw the Lord, and we trust that what the apostles said is true, so that it is not the word of a man, but the word of God.

Thomas was called to be an apostle and so Jesus allowed him to see his wounds. But Jesus says: Everyone else after you will not have this luxury. They will have to take your word for it. Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

This is a great encouragement to us. What do we see in the world? Christians being killed here and there. People falling away from the faith. Faithful pastors falling foul of church politics. What do we see in our hearts? Sin, failure, weakness. But Jesus sees all of this, even if we can’t say him. And yet he gives us his word, so that in this life we hear him and believe in him, and in the next life, we will see him in heaven, face to face, with all of our sin completely washed away and all of our wounds transformed and transfigured and glorified into badges of victory, just like his wounds which poured out for us his holy and precious blood.

And so John writes at the end of our reading: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Amen.

 

Dear Jesus, we believe that you are the Christ, our Lord and our God, and we ask that you would send us your Holy Spirit so that believing we may have life in your name. We confess that we are sinful, and that all our thoughts, our words and our actions are tainted, stained and poisoned by sin. But we confess that you are risen from the dead, so that we can have peace and forgiveness through your wounds. Strengthen our faith, dear Jesus, and turn all our fear into gladness, all our sorrows and troubles and worries into joy, the perfect joy of the resurrection. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.  

Easter Day [John 20:1-18] (17-Apr-2022)

        

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

There is one simple thing that we are gathered together here to celebrate today: the fact that Jesus is risen from the dead.

Every year for the around the last 2000 years or so, there has been some place in the world where these words have been said: Christ is risen! These simple words are the backbone of the Christian faith. There is no Christian faith without these words. There is no salvation without these words, there is no eternal life without these words. There is no forgiveness of sins without these words.

And so churches throughout the world have said for centuries this simple little phrase: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

On Easter Sunday, notice that we don’t say that Christ is alive. Sometimes churches have signs that say, “Jesus lives”, or something like that. Now, it is true: Jesus is alive. But this message is not the clear message of Christianity yet. You see, sometimes when a person dies, people say that they still live on in their hearts, or something like that. That is not what we’re talking about at Easter.

We are talking about the fact that after Jesus died on the cross, they wrapped his body up with cloths and anointed his body with spices. On Good Friday, he breathed out for the last time. And then on Easter Sunday he sat up, stood up and walked out of the tomb. The most important thing for us to come to terms with on Easter Sunday is the simple fact that the resurrection happened. Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Jesus is risen from the dead, he is completely risen from the dead, and nothing less than risen from the dead. Christ is risen, and in this way, and only in this way, can we say that he is alive.

When Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the angel Gabriel said to the Virgin Mary: “Nothing will be impossible with God.” On this occasion the angel was saying that it was not impossible that Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, should conceive and give birth to a son, when she had been barren all her life and now was old. It was also not impossible that Mary herself, a virgin, not having had any relations with a man, would conceive and give birth to the Son of God.

But this little motto – “Nothing will be impossible with God” – is a kind of summary of the whole of Jesus’ life. Every thing that Jesus says and does is coloured by these words.

And right up to Easter Sunday, we stand here today in the presence of God with the same motto on our lips, with God wiping all tears from our eyes, speaking our faith in the presence of the angels and against the world, confessing with confidence the most impossible thing that could happen: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

And so in our Gospel reading today from St John, we are put in the shoes of Mary Madgalene. We read: Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Sometimes people talk as if there are two types of Christians: Good Friday Christians and Easter Sunday Christians. Basically, this amounts to happy Christians and sad Christians, as if being someone who is sad is a bad thing in the sight of God, and being someone who is constantly happy is what it really means to be a Christian. If you hear this sort of thing, then walk away and let the devil make those sorts of distinctions. It’s all rubbish, and just some silly attempt to undermine your faith because of whatever emotions you might feel.

As I heard a pastor recently put it like this: “Without the resurrection, Jesus is not the crucified one, but merely the one who was crucified and is still dead. But since he rose from the dead, He lives as the crucified one. Jesus risen is Jesus crucified. So every faithful pastor preaches Christ crucified!”

What we notice in our reading here is that Mary did not go the cross on Easter Sunday morning. She went to the tomb. She knew that the cross was empty. But she didn’t know the tomb was empty until she got there.

You see, often Lutheran churches have a crucifix in them. And people say—wrongly—that because Jesus is risen, the cross should be empty. But the symbol of the resurrection is not an empty cross, but an empty tomb. The message of Easter is that this Jesus crucified on the cross is the one who is risen from the dead.

But in our Gospel reading today, we notice that Mary Magdalene is crying, she is worried, she is distressed.

She goes to Peter and John and she says: “They have taken away my Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

She brings her problems and her distress to Peter and John.

And what happens? We read: So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.  Both of them were running together but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must risen from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.

Notice all the detail here: the little race that the disciples have, the linen cloths, the face cloth by itself, Peter looks in first and then John.

Mary leads Peter and John to see what she saw for themselves. But what good does this do for Mary?

We read: But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.

She is still crying, she is still anxious, she is still distressed.

She is still without comfort. Her soul refuses to be comforted, and so it should.

The apostles by themselves cannot do a single thing for her. They cannot comfort her. Fellow sinners can bring no comfort from their own minds to fellow sinners. No amount of “cheer up”, “it’s all right”, “don’t cry” can stop Mary Magdalene’s tears from flowing.

So it’s very important how we think about Jesus here: do you think he’s just another man, like any other man, like the Peter or John? There are plenty of people today who deny that Jesus is true God and true man in one person. But you see, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit from a virgin, he was both God and man together. If you don’t believe that Jesus is truly God, then what are you left with? Nothing better than Peter or John—a man like any other man. And then we read: But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. Peter and John can offer Mary no comfort. And you believe that Jesus is simply just another “good man”, a “nice guy”, a “pretty good sort of bloke” like Peter and John, then there is no comfort for you. That sort of Jesus is simply not capable of wiping Mary’s tears away.

Then we read: And Mary saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Here we see also that even angels from heaven are not capable of wiping Mary’s tears away. You would have thought that it was an amazing thing that she had seen such a glorious vision from heaven. But she doesn’t want them. She doesn’t want to see angels: her concern is her Lord: “They have taken away my Lord”.

Jesus isn’t an angel either. He isn’t some sort of ghost, or spirit. He has a real human body. If you think that Jesus is just some sort of wafty, nebulous ghost, then you haven’t met the real Jesus. Jesus didn’t become a ghost after his resurrection. He got up and walked out of the tomb. There are Christians today who say that Jesus didn’t physically rise from the dead. They basically make Jesus out to be some sort of angel, or spirit, or ghost. No! Jesus is truly human, a real man who took flesh and blood from his mum, who had real nails go through his hands and feet. He is a high priest who sympathises with you in your weakness.

Out with Jesus, if he is only just a man like Peter and John! Throw Jesus out, if he is merely a spirit, like these two angels! Chuck Jesus out if he is not true God, and just a “good bloke”! Chuck Jesus out if he is not true man, and is just some sort of spirit! Give the impostors the heave-ho! Any “Jesus” like this is the devil in disguise and is not welcome in our church on Easter Sunday. Even two men and the two angels disappoint Mary and leave her in her tears.

So we read: Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means teacher).

And finally, we read that Mary’s tears dry up and her heart rejoices, not only when she is standing in the presence of her risen Saviour, but when he calls her by name.

Jesus, our risen Saviour, true man and true God, our Lord, our teacher, calls you by name today. He calls you to follow him, to worship him, to trust in him. And when Jesus calls you by name, and when he allows you to recognise him as your resurrected Lord, then he comforts you. Jesus is the one who says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” No human being can say this, no angel or spirit can say this. Only Jesus can say this, only Jesus can wipe away our tears from our eyes, because only he is the Son of God, only he is our Immanuel, our God with us, only he was crucified on the cross, and only he was risen from the dead. You are in the presence of the risen Lord Jesus in this church today! This is a reality, a fact—don’t mistake him for a gardener, but recognise him for who he is: he is calling you by your name!

Only he can turn our mourning into dancing, as it says in Psalm 30. Only he can loose our sackcloth and clothe us with gladness.

So St Paul says: If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… If Christ has not been raised, your faith it futile and you are still in your sins… But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

And so Mary says: “I have seen the Lord!”

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Amen.

 

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

Easter Vigil [1 Corinthians 15:57] (16-Apr-2022)

       

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

The Easter Vigil which we are celebrating tonight is a wonderful occasion which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ in a very special way, calling to mind the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead, and that he rose from the dead in history.

It’s one thing for us as Christians to have faith, but our faith is also rooted and grounded in real things that actually happened, in history, at particular times and in particular places.

And so, tonight, we have read some key moments in the history of the world and of God’s people, as we read them in the Bible. We read about the creation of the world. We read about the way in which Noah and his family and the animals were saved from the flood on the ark. We read about the way in which the people of Israel were saved from the Egyptians when Moses parted the Red Sea. We read about the wonderful way in which Ezekiel saw God clothe a valley of bones with flesh and blood and put breath in the mouth in such a way that they became a mighty army. We read about the way in which Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were rescued from the fiery furnace in Babylon. These events happened at various times and we thank God for these events and for the wonderful way in which God did many mighty and wonderful things.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also a wonderful thing, that God did, and is something that he did in history. Jesus actually died and was laid in a tomb, at a particular time, but also, he actually rose from the dead, and stood up and walked out of the tomb at a particular time and at a particular place. And this is the wonderful event that we celebrate and commemorate at Easter.

Also, at the same time, we read that after Jesus rose from the dead, he commanded that the disciples go out into all the world and preach the Gospel. Now, what is this word, “Gospel”? Where does it come from? In the Greek language, the word is “evangelion”, which is where we get the words in English, “Evangelical” or “Evangelist”. But what does it mean? You don’t just invent a new word and expect everyone to know what it means.

The word “Gospel” means “good news”. And normally, before Christians used it, it had to do with when there was a battle or a war, and then the war was won, there was a victory, the enemy was defeated. And so, someone had to go back to the towns and villages from the battlefield and tell everyone what had happened, that the enemy had surrendered or fled, and that we had won. And so, this was the wonderful “good news” that a person had to bring to the people back home.

At Easter time, we also celebrate the wonderful good news, that Jesus has risen from the dead, that he has won a wonderful victory.

In Luther’s Small Catechism, we have a wonderful summary of the way in which Christ has redeemed us. He writes that Jesus Christ has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

On Good Friday, we spoke particularly about how Jesus purchased us from all sins, from the death and the devil. He offered his own life and blood as a priest offering himself as a sacrifice for us. He paid the debt and the price to God because of his justice and righteousness, which we owed because of our sins. Jesus stood in our place, and the wrath of God was turned away from us.

But also, Jesus has won a wonderful victory. Luther writes there that Jesus has purchased and won me from all sins, from the death and from the power of the devil. We don’t see that this is a victory until Easter, because if Jesus were still in the grave, if he were still in the tomb, there would be no atonement and there would be no victory. St Paul says: If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. But he also writes: The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, with the resurrection of Jesus Christ comes the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of everlasting life together with him. And this is a wonderful victory! It’s a wonderful celebration! The battle has been won. The war is over. We are at peace with God. This is the Gospel, the wonderful good news of our salvation!

But there’s one more thing that we celebrate and commemorate tonight in a particularly special way, and that is Holy Baptism. The Easter Vigil was a traditional time in the history of the church when people would be baptised. We also spoke and confessed our baptismal vows just earlier.

Why is this? Why the focus on Baptism here at Easter? Well, there’s a question that many Christians ask, and that is a question that is still right at the forefront of many people’s mind constantly. The question is: how does the death and resurrection, and the atonement and forgiveness and salvation that Jesus won for us, apply to me personally? How do I receive it?

Well, of course, many Christians would say, we repent of our sins, and we believe the Gospel. And this is true. However, we often ask the question: how do I know that I left the kingdom of darkness and entered into the kingdom of light? How do I know that my conversion was genuine?

You see, many Christians look back to their conversion in all these things, but the problem with doing this is that when people to convert to Christianity, they are new to the faith, and many of their sins, and bad motives, and all kinds of strange things are mixed up in it all, and it causes doubts. People might think: when I gave my heart to Jesus, I felt pressured, or maybe I had too much coffee, or lemonade? Was it really me that converted, or was it just the sugar and the caffeine talking?

Sometimes, people have gone to these large churches, or a Billy Graham crusade, where there is an altar call. And they go up the front and commit their lives to Jesus. But then, a year later, they go to another one. A year later, they go to another one. And then they start to think: actually, which occasion was my conversion? Was it the first, the second, or the third time I went forward? Or maybe, I never genuinely converted at all. And then, what about someone who was raised in the Christian faith by Christian parents, and has always known Jesus, and has never known any different?

There are also many preachers that point people to the change that happens in our hearts after we convert to Christianity. And they say: the way you know that you are a true Christian, is that you can see God working the new life in you. But also, Christians will also look into their hearts and see many sins, they will see a lot of darkness, they will see many problems, many struggles, many temptations, and then they start to think, “Am I really a Christian?” Even there are preachers, who say that if you can’t see this new life in your heart, or you can’t see any improvement, it’s not that you have fallen away from the faith, it means that you had never genuinely converted in the first place.

And so, people are left with despair. And there is a tremendous amount of despair in this kind of Christianity. Now, it is true: we should repent of our sins, we should bring our sins and our troubles to God, and we should seek to live the new life which God has given us. However, this is a daily thing, a thing that happens again and again, and is constantly going on.

If we read the Book of Acts, where we see many people convert to the Christian faith, they are always told to repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. But also, they are always baptised immediately.

Baptism is the occasion where everything that Jesus did on the cross and in his resurrection is applied to us. That’s why after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus sent this apostles out to all the world to preach and to baptise. Baptism is often the forgotten link today between what Jesus did in the past, and his personal rescuing and saving of you now, in your life.

So, just as Jesus’ death was a historical event, and his resurrection from the dead was a historical event, which didn’t happen in someone’s heart, but happened in history before our eyes, so also, your baptism is a historical event, it doesn’t happen somewhere in your heart, but it happens before your eyes.

And this is so important, too, because if our faith is to trust in anything, it must trust not in our work, or our personal conversion, or the changes that we see or don’t see in our own hearts. It must trust in God’s work, in something that he has done outside of us, apart from us. In baptism, we see the water and we hear God’s word about it, and we trust that God has worked a wonderful salvation which he applied to us personally. Jesus died and rose again from the dead back then, and then in baptism, we read in Romans, that we are buried with Christ and risen with him. Just as St Peter says on the day of Pentecost: Repent and be baptised everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So, let’s thank Jesus for the wonderful gift of his death and resurrection, let’s thank him for the wonderful way in which he has saved us through his wonderful atonement and for the way in which he has given us his victory over sin and death and the devil. Let’s also thank him for the gift of Baptism, where he has applied and given all these things into our hands, and let’s commend our lives into his hands, and seek each day to live the new life which he has given to us as a gift. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

Good Friday [The Suffering and Death of Jesus] (15-Apr-2022)

      

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. (1 Peter 3:18)

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

On Good Friday, we particularly remember the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. In history, we recognise that there was a real person called Jesus, who lived a real life, and that at a particular time, at the time of Passover, at a certain year, we recognise that Jesus suffered and died. In some sense, people don’t have to be a Christian to recognise that these things happened, but in the church, we also celebrate and commemorate and remember these things, because we want to bring them to mind, think about them, and hold these events before our eyes. Also, we believe that these things that Jesus did and which happened to him are of such great importance for us, and not only us, but also for everyone all throughout the world. But also, Jesus didn’t suffer and die for no reason: there was a reason for it, a purpose for it, and it meant something and achieved something. He suffered and died as the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, taking upon himself the sin of the world, to satisfy the wrath of God against sin, to make an atonement for sin with his own life and blood, to win for people the forgiveness of sin, to destroy death and the power of the devil.

And so, first of all, let’s summarise the events of Jesus’ suffering and death. Basically, we have five scenes. First of all, we have the events that took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then Jesus moved to the house of the high priest Caiaphas. Then Jesus moved to the judgment hall before Pontius Pilate, the governor. Then we read about the crucifixion of Jesus itself, which took place outside the city of Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha. And then, we read about the burial of Christ, when he was placed in a tomb.

First of all, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read about how Christ took his disciples there, and also prophesied that all of his disciples would forsake him. Right from the beginning, we see that Jesus is our all-knowing and all-seeing God. He knows everything that will happen to him, and he prophesies what the disciples will do. But also, he knows that he must also carry and bear the sins of the world alone, with no-one else to help. So, we as Christians, when we look into ourselves, we see only our sin and our weakness, but we rely in everything on Christ, because he is our only Saviour, and he goes to his suffering and death completely alone, without any helpers.

Then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see how Jesus has such terrible internal suffering and prays so forcefully and strongly that he even sweats blood, and submits himself willingly to his Father’s will. Here, we see that when Jesus’ suffers for us, there is not only a physical external suffering, but also an internal suffering on the part of Jesus. Sin affects us right to the core of our being, and it pervades the core of our being. And so when Jesus takes on our sin, he takes it on internally, and suffers in his mind and in his heart. We look to him as the one that has truly born the weight of our sin, and who prays and intercedes for us before the Father.

Then we read that Jesus was arrested in the garden, and betrayed by Judas with a kiss. Judas brings to Jesus a false gesture: he pretends to show him a gesture of love and friendship, but behind the gesture, behind the kiss, there is a deceit, because it had been pre-arranged that Judas would show to the soldiers who Jesus was by doing this. The law of God requires us to be genuine and upright and honest and loving in all of our words and thoughts and gesture. However, we drastically fall short of this. As it says in Romans, Let God be true though every one were a liar. And so, Jesus takes upon himself the weight of the falsehood and the deceitfulness of sin, the bitterness of being betrayed, the bitterness of being turned against by a former friend.

We read, next in the Garden, that Jesus doesn’t allow himself to be defended with a sword, and is deserted and forsaken by all his disciples. The disciples have a plan about how they are going to defend Jesus, but Jesus doesn’t need to be defended. There were many times, when people tried to kill Jesus, when they tried to throw him over a cliff, or tried to stone him to death, but he hid himself from them and escaped. It wasn’t the right time. But now, Jesus submits to them willingly, not hiding himself, not calling on legions of angels to help him, because now is the right time.

Then we come to the second venue or setting or place where the events of Good Friday took place. We come to the house of the high priest Caiaphas. We read that Jesus was examined about his disciples and his teaching and was struck in the face. Here we see how Jesus gave a true testimony, although everyone else gave a false testimony. Even when he spoke the truth, they didn’t want to hear it. They thought it was even blasphemy, and so they call for his death. Here we see how the Law of God requires us to have one God and to hear the Word of God and to follow it. However, many times, and often, and even constantly, when we hear the Word of God, we are so plagued and filled with our own self-righteousness, our own ideas about how things are and how they should be, that God’s Word makes no sense to us, or it can even make us angry, and turn against God. And so, here we see the way in which even religious self-righteousness condemns the Son of God himself. They even spit on him and slap him, and all that kind of thing. All of these things, the insults and the false sentence, all of these things Jesus takes upon his own shoulders, and offers himself willingly to endure them for us.

In the meantime, we read about how Peter denied Jesus three times and the rooster crowed, reminding him of the time earlier that day, when Jesus had prophesied and predicted that Peter would do exactly as he just did. We often look into our hearts, and we want to pluck up our own strength, and even to commit ourselves to Jesus and his cause. But in actual fact, we fail to recognise our weakness and our sin and the evil in our heart, that actually is ashamed of Jesus. This shame is sometimes exposed in some situation, as it happened to Peter. But you see, we need to see that Peter is not our Saviour, he is not the strong man, he is not the mighty warrior. The same goes with us. We are sinners, and Jesus is offering himself for our sin by himself. He will not share this sacrificial act with us in any way, so that we should never have a single inkling that we have contributed something to this atonement, and to our salvation. Jesus does it all, and when we think we are going to do it, then Jesus needs to show us our sin. But then, like Peter, he sees Jesus eyes from the other side of the room, look right to him. Peter then knows that Jesus knows. Jesus look cuts him to the heart, and Peter runs out in a blubbering mess. After the resurrection, Jesus also asked Peter three times, Do you love me? In this way, Jesus calls Peter back and forgives him for this. But everything depends on Jesus here. Nothing depends on Peter, just as nothing depends on us.

We read now, about how Jesus is taken to the judgment hall to Pontius Pilate. He is accused before Pilate and gives a faithful witness. Pilate considers Jesus, actually, to be innocent, and sends him to Herod. Then Herod sends him back, and Pilate tries to appease the crowd by having Jesus scourged – that is, whipped in a terrible way. Even in the midst of all this, Pilate’s wife even comes and warns him that she had a bad dream about Jesus. Pilate tries to give the crowd a choice, by offering to release either Jesus or Barabbas, who was a hardened criminal. They chose Barabbas. A criminal released, and the innocent one is taken and scourged, whipped many times with terrible whips that had pieces of metal and bone in them. He was clothed with a purple robe, crowned with thorns, and given a reed for a sceptre, and was mocked. Then we read how after all this, the high priests and Jewish leaders still pressured and made noise and cried for Jesus to be crucified, to be nailed on a cross, the most brutal form of Roman execution, reserved particularly for rebels. Pilate then acknowledges that Jesus is the king of the Jews, washes his hands of the matter, and condemns him to death on a cross.

Here, in this whole history of Pontius Pilate dealing with Jesus we see what looks like a terrible perversion of justice. We are in a court room, which has gone terribly wrong. The judge is overthrown by the mob. In the end, the judge does completely the wrong thing under pressure. He hands Jesus over to a terrible miscarriage of justice.

However, there is something else that is going on here. On one hand, Jesus is on trial. But actually, is it Pilate, the crowds, and the whole world that is on trial. Jesus stands there innocently, but in fact, he is the judge, and he is putting Pilate, the crowds and the whole world in the dock. But in fact, what happens is that everything that looks perverted and upside down, is in fact the right way that everything should be. Because this is not about Jesus being given a false judgement, it is about Jesus carrying the right judgment that belongs to us. The law of God demands that we should be perfect, just as God is perfect, that we should love God with all our heart, with all our heart, with all mind and with all our strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. Jesus says: Do this and you will live. But in actual fact, we don’t do this, we fail miserably at it. We don’t do this, and so we rightly die. The wages of sin is death. And so, Jesus stands here, the innocent one, the one who really has fulfilled the law, who has really done all these things, whose mind is pure, whose gestures are honest, and whose judgments are always right. And he takes the false judgment of the world, which is actually the true judgement of God upon us. And so, when we sinned, we have a judgment to face, a sentence which is due, a fine to pay, if you like, which is so large that it is beyond our ability and strength to pay it. But Jesus pays it, he takes the judgment upon himself. Imagine if you were in court, because you had a stack of fines to pay, which you couldn’t pay. But then, if someone pays them for you, then you can go free. And so, Jesus pays the price of our sin. He is judged wrongly by these people, but God judges us rightly and gives to His only Son this judgment to carry upon himself. When the sentence is paid, the justice of God is satisfied, his wrath and anger against us is appeased, and we can go free.

And so, now we come to the fourth scene of Jesus’ suffering and death: the crucifixion itself. Jesus is led from the city of Jerusalem, and speaks to the women weeping on the road there. He is brought to Golgotha, tastes the bitter wine mixed with myrrh, and is crucified there. He prays also for those who crucify him. Pilate puts a message above his cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.” The soldiers divide Jesus’ clothes by casting lots. Jesus gives his mother into the care of John, who takes her home to look after her. While Jesus is on the cross, many people mock him and defame him, taunting him to prove himself by coming down. We read that one of the criminals next to Jesus converts to him, and heaven is promised to him, and opened to him.

Then we read that at 12 o’clock, the sixth hour, as the bible calls it, darkness comes over the whole land. Jesus cries to God, and laments being forsaken by God. Jesus complains of his thirst. He declares that everything is finished. He commends his spirit in to the hands of his Father, and he falls asleep in death, and yields up his spirit.

Here we see in all these things how Jesus is our wonderful high priest. In the Old Testament, we see how the priests offered all kinds of sacrifices to God. But here, we see that Jesus is both the priest and the sacrifice. He offers himself, and he offers his own blood. No priest had done this before, and no priest will do it after him. This is the one, perfect, sufficient sacrifice and atonement for the sins of the whole world.

We see the wonderful way in which Jesus offers prayers in sacrifice there. The cross is not a silent place, it is a place of prayer. And we also see with the thief, that the cross is not a place of despair and failure for us, but it is the place where our salvation is won, where our entrance into heaven is given. The repentant thief says to the other: Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong. The thief recognises that he is a sinner, but Jesus is the sinless one. The thief has been judged rightly, Jesus has been judged wrongly by the people. But then, Jesus is also judged for us, sentenced for us, he innocently suffers for the thief, so that when the thief dies he will not go to hell, but will enter into Paradise with Jesus. The thief says: Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom. Jesus says: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. And so, the death of Jesus is our life.

After the death of Jesus, we also read about the wonderful miracles that took place, how the rocks were split, and the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom, and that many saints were raised from the dead and appeared to people in Jerusalem after Jesus rose from the dead.

When we see the temple curtain torn in two, it was no accident. Normally, at home, if our curtain tears, it frays from the bottom upwards. But this curtain was torn from the top to the bottom. We see two things here: first of all, God the Father, who promised to meet his people there at the Ark of the Covenant, in the Most Holy place in the temple, receives this wonderful sacrifice of the life of his Son. Also, the sacrifice of Jesus is presented to God the Father, and in such a way that the old Jewish worship in the temple is no longer needed. The continual and regular sacrifices of the animals in the temple are no longer needed, because Jesus has offered himself.

Then we read that Jesus’ body was taken by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea and buried in a new tomb. Actually, Jesus was buried by wealthy people in a wealthy person’s tomb. And there he would rest until he walks out, when he rises from the dead.

And so, this Good Friday, we should once again call all these events to mind and think about them, remember them, and consider them. Today, we’ve briefly gone through the history and the suffering and death. But also, let’s never also forget the purpose and the reason for it.

First of all, we should call to mind that God has given to all people his holy and unchangeable law, and requires from all people—no matter who they are—a complete and total obedience to it, and pronounces eternal damnation on all whose who don’t keep it. Jesus says: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. But also, we read in Galatians: Cursed is everyone that does not abide by all the things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.

Second, we should call to mind that God has placed upon Jesus, and that Jesus willingly accepted, the obligation to keep the law perfectly, and also the bear the punishment for it, and he did this in our place. We read in Galatians: When the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law…Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, by being made a curse for us. So everything that Jesus did, in his suffering and death, he did for us, and he did in our place, so that the Law which we should have kept, he kept, and the punishment that should have been ours was his.

Third, in this obedience of the death of Christ, which he did in our place, God’s wrath and anger against us, against people, against sinful human beings, was appeased, and satisfied. The debt was paid for, and his judgment and condemnation is therefore set aside. In Romans we read: By the righteousness of one man leads to justification and life for all men… Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. So, what it means, is that we are reconciled to God, and our sins are not counted against us. Jesus is our sacrifice, our Saviour, our Mediator, our priest, our righteousness, our salvation, and our reconciliation with God.

And so, let’s commend our lives to Jesus Christ. Let’s bring our sin and our weakness and our whole sinful life and condition to him. Let’s trust in him for our salvation, who put himself in our place and took our sin upon himself. And let’s thank him for the wonderful way in which we are reconciled to God through Him. Let us live with him and die with him, who lived for you and who died for you. Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. 

Maundy Thursday [1 Corinthians 11:23-30] (14-Apr-2022)

     

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In Joshua chapter 4, there is a very interesting event that takes place, just after the people of Israel cross over the river Jordan. The people of Israel had been rescued for Egypt, and then spent many years wandering in the desert, and then they reached the other side of the river Jordan, where Moses died. And then, after Moses’ death, Joshua was given command of the people. And in a similar way to how Moses parted the Red Sea to let the people go through, on a smaller scale, Joshua together with the whole people of Israel cross over the River Jordan, with the overflowing waters of the river stopping and drying up on either side of the people. The priests stood in the middle of the river bed with the ark of the covenant and the river stopped flowing, while the people all crossed over.

Now, this was an amazing event that took place. And in chapter 4 of Joshua, God commands that one man from each tribe should take a stone from the river. We read: Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean to you’? then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

So you can see here: not only did God allow the people of Israel to pass through the river, but that He also wanted them to remember it, and He commanded them to put together this pile of rocks so that people would ask about it and talk about it and keep the memory of it in their minds. So there is the event, but there is also something established to remember the event.

This is something that happened with the Jews about all kinds of things. There were all kinds of wonderful events that happened in the life of the Jewish people, but then they also remembered these events and did something and held a festival to celebrate it. Sometimes, these festivals were commanded by God. Sometimes, there were certain days, where certain things had to be done or not done in order to remember the occasion.

In the New Testament, there is a certain freedom with many of these things. In Colossians, St Paul writes: Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. What St Paul is saying is that there is no longer any law when it comes to celebrating occasions and keeping church festivals. But at the same time, over the centuries, Christians followed this same principle which came from ancient times. In history, there was an amazing person that lived and breathed and walked, who died and who rose again from the dead, and who now is still alive, and keeps sustaining and building his kingdom and his church here on this earth. His name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the Son of God and the Son of Mary, who is both true God and true man in the one person. On one hand, there are many events that happened in his life, but also like the ancient Jewish people, out of Christian freedom, the church throughout the centuries has always celebrated these various events in the life of Jesus, and remembered them all throughout the year.

Here we are in the middle of what we call Holy Week. In the life of Jesus, there was an actual Holy Week, which began on Palm Sunday. There was an actual event, but every year, we remember it. Tonight, we celebrate Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow, we commemorate Good Friday, the day when Jesus died on the cross. On Sunday, we remember the day when Jesus rose from the dead.

If we take the Apostles’ Creed, it gives us a short summary of the life of Jesus. It says that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day, he rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sits and right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

So, also, just as the people of Israel crossed the Jordan, and then remembered it by making a pile of stones, so also with the life of Jesus, we also remember all these different things. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit—we remember this on March 25, nine months before Christmas, the Annuniciation, where the Angel Gabriel went to the Virgin Mary. He was born of the Virgin Mary—we remember this event at Christmas. And so forth. Here at this time of the year, we remember the suffering and death of Jesus, and his wonderful resurrection from the dead.

So—what is it that we remember on Maundy Thursday? On this day certain things happened, and we are here, as it were, looking at our little pile of rocks like the people of Israel at the river Jordan, and we should ask the question: What do these stones mean to you?

Actually, there were many things that happened on Maundy Thursday. First of all, this was the occasion when the Jews celebrated the Passover. We read in the Old Testament about how God rescued the people from Egypt. Each family killed a lamb, and painted its blood on the frames of their doors. Then they ate a meal with unleavened bread, and God let them out to the Red Sea, the Egyptians followed them, and Moses parted the Red Sea in a wonderful miraculous way by the power and command of God, and the people were led through the middle of the sea and saved from the Egyptians.

Then many, many hundreds of years later, the Jews would have been celebrating this festival every year. At the time of Jesus, he would have also celebrated this festival every year. On Maundy Thursday, we remember this as the last night before Jesus died, when he gathered his disciples together in an upper room. He told his disciples to go and meet a man with a water jar who would lead them to this particular house, when everything was prepared. Jesus celebrated there the Passover with his twelve disciples, and then he completely transformed the Passover. He took bread and wine and gave it to his disciples and said, This is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Also, we read on Maundy Thursday, that during the time when they were gathered there for the Supper, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, as a picture of the way in which he is among them as one who serves. He gives them this wonderful picture to the apostles of how they should lead the church: not by asserting authority and power, but through service and servanthood.

Also, on Maundy Thursday, we read about how Judas went out and betrayed Jesus. Jesus knew it would happen in advance, he prophesied it, Judas went out, he was paid money by the conspirators, and it was all organised.

Jesus also on this occasion, in the upper room, gave his disciples some wonderful teaching, which we read at the end of John 13 right up to the end of chapter 16. There are many memorable, well-known things from this sermon. For example, Jesus says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Also: In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?... I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you… I am the vine; you are the branches… You can read these chapters yourself. There are many things that Jesus spoke on this night.

Then also, we read in John 17, a wonderful prayer that Jesus prayed, which we often call the High Priestly Prayer. Also, we read that Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn together, and Jesus went out to the Mount of Olives, where he prayed, and sweated blood, and then was met my Judas and a crowd of soldiers and officers, and was betrayed and arrested.

So these are the things that happened on Maundy Thursday, and these are the things that we are coming together to commemorate tonight. Just as the Israelites heaped up their rocks and remembered the crossing of the Jordan, so also we are gathered here tonight to remember the real events in the life of Jesus that happened at a certain time and in a certain place.

However, if we think about the memorial at the River Jordan, we see also on Maundy Thursday how Jesus transforms this and fulfils this in a wonderful, powerful, miraculous way. He celebrates his own Supper. He took bread, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said: Take and eat, this is my body which is given for you. He also took the cup, after the supper, and when he had given thanks, He gave it to them and said: Drink of it, all of you: this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

However, Jesus did not just celebrate this Supper once with His disciples, and that’s it. He commended this whole Supper into their hands and said: Do this in remembrance of me. Do this as often you as you drink it in remembrance of me.

So, just as at the River Jordan, the stones were set up as a memorial, so also Jesus sets up his own Supper as a memorial. And this is not just a memorial of something that happened, but it is a memorial of him. We remember not just the events of Jesus’ life, but we remember Him. And we don’t just remember the fact that He lived and died and rose again 2000 years ago, but we remember Him, as He meets us today, as our resurrected Lord, who is ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God.

Now, this word “remember”, many people don’t understand properly. There are many Christians, for example, all throughout the world, mostly in Protestant churches, that believe that the Lord’s Supper is nothing more than bread and wine, and when we eat and drink it, we just remember Jesus. That’s not true. The reason why it’s not true, is that Jesus says on this occasion: This is my body. This is my blood. Also, there are some people who say that Jesus is kind of spiritually present in the Supper, like his spirit is here, or the Holy Spirit is here, but none of these solutions deal with Jesus’ words: This is my body. This is my blood. Jesus didn’t say, this represents, or this symbolises my body, or this is my spirit, or this is my Holy Spirit.

So let’s look at this word remember. In English, we often think of this word as to do with thinking, as if remembering is something that happens in our heads. So in the Lord’s Supper, people say: we eat bread with our mouths, and remember Jesus in our heads. But in Hebrew, and in the Old Testament, for example, there are many examples of where remember means something that you do, just as Jesus says: Do this in remembrance of me. So, for example, when Joseph was in prison, he asked the cup-bearer to remember him when he spoke to Pharoah. This means, not that the cup-bearer would just think about him, but that he would do something for him to get him out of prison. Also, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, couldn’t have any children, and she prayed to God about it. Then it says: Elkanah knew his wife, and the Lord remembered her. The Lord didn’t forget about her, he was always listening to her prayers, but at this particular time, the Lord did something for her and enabled her to conceive a child. Also, think of the thief on the cross, who asks Jesus to remember me, when you come into your kingdom. He doesn’t mean to say: “When you’re in heaven, Jesus, remember me while I’m in hell.” No, he means: Do something, Jesus. When you enter heaven, take me with you. Do something. Don’t just remember me in your head, but remember me with your hand and draw me along with you.

Even in English, we have the example of a wedding anniversary. How does a husband remember their anniversary? He buys her chocolates, flowers, a card, does something special. But if he didn’t do anything, his wife might say: Hey, have you forgotten something? If he said, “Yes, I remember in my head”, that wouldn’t cut the mustard, and he would probably soon find himself in that special place where husbands sometimes find themselves, called “the doghouse”!

So, what’s the thing that we do to remember Jesus in the Lord’s Supper? We eat his body and drink his blood. We remember Him, yes, in our heads, of course, we remember him in our minds, and in our hearts. But also, by doing this thing: by eating his body and by drinking his blood. So, we remember Jesus not in his absence, but in His holy presence.

And this fact actually changes the whole way in which we view worship. The reason why we have the liturgy, why we light candles, why we have special cloths, special items, vestments, the reason why we stand and kneel, and all chant and sing, is because through all these things, we acknowledge that we are standing in the holy presence of the living and resurrected Lord Jesus. In the Old Testament, God promised to meet his people in his temple, in the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was. There are chapters and chapters in the bible about the way the tabernacle and the temple should be built, about how the candlesticks should be made, the vestments, the curtains, everything. We have something even more wonderful in the Lord’s Supper. Even if we read the Book of Revelation, we see the whole company of heaven with the angels and archangels singing, with bowls of incense, with harps, bowing down, singing, chanting, praying, praising. When we come to church, we’re actually not simply copying things from the Old Testament. The Old Testament gives us a wonderful understanding of worship in the presence of God, which is now fulfilled and transformed and transfigured by the holy presence of Jesus. But rather, when we come to church, we actually enter into heaven already given to us in a little foretaste here on earth: we’re actually joining in with what’s already going on in heaven. We sing angelic hymns which are sung constantly all the time, and they join in with us, and supplement our numbers, and boost our weak singing, and all that kind of thing.

Now, when we come to the Lord’s Supper, then, the whole of Jesus’ life comes together. His incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas, where he became a human being and took on human flesh, being God and man in one person, all this is remembered in the Lord’s Supper, because this is not just the body and blood of a man, but it is the blood of Jesus Christ, who is also true God, whose blood cleanses us from all sin. It is the body and blood of the one who sits on the throne of God, and is able to feed his people everywhere and in all kinds of places all at the same time, all throughout the world, and all throughout history.

But then also, we commemorate and remember his suffering and death. When we were baptised, we were made part of God’s kingdom, his family, and made citizens of heaven, and given a new life, a new birth, and we were born again by the water and the Spirit. Our whole life then, is one of repentance, where our sinful hearts and minds are converted from sin, from the devil, from our old life, to faith, to good works, to the Holy Spirit, to a new life.

And so, when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we come as converts, as sinners in need of a Saviour. We come recognising that we are not good people, recognising that we have broken the 10 commandments, recognising that we have sinned against God, and turning away from our old life once again as it continually rises up within us and wants to take charge again and again. We recognise that we are liars, thieves, and adulterers at heart.

But then, we come in all our unworthiness and we receive this Supper, believing first of all, that this is the body and blood of Christ, and secondly, that it is given for us and for the forgiveness of sins. We come to it, just as if we were facing death and judgment day, so that when we face death and judgment day, it will be just like going to the Lord’s Supper. We remember that we are sinners, but then we also remember the wonderful Saviour that Jesus is. He is our Saviour from sin, the Lord of our lives who leads us and guides as a good shepherd, he is the King of all creation, who sits at the right hand of God, and who rules us and blesses us. He is our priest, who has offered himself for us, and who prays for us, and intercedes for us, and mediates for us to God.

And so, we remember first of all that event that happened when the Israelites heaped up their rocks, to remember to crossing of the River Jordan. In a similar way, in Christian freedom, we remember the events of Jesus’ life all throughout the church year, like little rocks on the calendar. But then, each Sunday, we also proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes, and remember another little pile of rocks, the pile of bread and wine on the altar, which is the body and blood of Christ. And this Supper is the memorial of Jesus: We do this in remembrance of him. Because just as he blessed, and fed, and healed, and forgave all kinds of people in his ministry, so he continues all of that even today, and blesses each of us and forgives us each according to our needs. So, we commend our lives and hearts and our minds and everything to him, and to his life-giving body and blood. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

Palm Sunday [John 12:12-19] (10-Apr-2022)

    

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today we celebrate the wonderful occasion of Palm Sunday, where exactly one week before Jesus rose from the dead, he entered into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, and was welcomed by the crowds.

In our sermon today, I’d like us to meditate on the history of this event firstly, but then also on the kingdom of Christ, and how he is enthroned and crowned as the king of the Jews and of the Gentiles.

We read first of all: The next day the large crowd that has come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. Here we read that the crowd was coming to the feast. The feast that the text is talking about is the Passover, because during the week that was coming up ahead, the Jewish people would celebrate the Passover.

We read: So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

Now, in the other Gospels we read that Jesus was coming down the Mount of Olives, and approached the towns of Bethany and Bethphage that were nearby. And he sends his disciples into Bethphage, and tells them: Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. You can see that Jesus doesn’t go and get the animals himself, but sends his disciples to get them. This is very important, because Jesus actually tells them in advance how everything is going to be. We read that Jesus says to them: If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once. In Mark and Luke, we read that this happened exactly like this. The owners weren’t expecting this, Jesus hadn’t arranged it with them previously. And so they did ask them: Why are you untying the colt? And they said: The Lord has need of it.

Another thing that we read about in the Gospels about this donkey, from Mark, is that this is a donkey on which no one has ever sat. It hasn’t been tamed or ridden in yet. It’s not an experienced and trained donkey. And so we see here a number of wonderful things, and the way in which Jesus arranges all of this, and tells his disciples, and it happens just as he says it will. He knows where the donkey is, he knows where it is tied up, he tells them what to say when someone comes along and asks them about it. In actual fact, someone does ask them about it, and then allows them to take it without any fuss or difficulty. And in fact, Jesus has no need for someone to tame the donkey first, because he is the Lord of all creation, and the creator of the donkey, and he knows how to put the donkey at ease, without it being frightened or upset. Right at the beginning of the Bible, we read where God says to the humans he has created: Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Here we see Jesus—who is both God and a true man—take his dominion over this donkey, as a creature of God’s good creation.

As Jesus was coming down from the Mount of Olives, and when this donkey was brought to him, the people were gathering around him and going ahead and behind him, spreading their cloaks on the road, and waving all kinds of branches and palm branches. We read in Luke: As he was drawing near—already on the way down from the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen. This would have been quite a long procession—a good couple of kilometres—from Bethphage near the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem.

We read that the crowd on this day was crying out: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. In Matthew’s Gospel, it says: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Mark writes: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest! In Luke, it says: Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!

We see these words, particularly: Hosanna! And Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! These two things comes from Psalm 118. “Hosanna” means “Save us”. All these things that the crowds were shouting and crying out were all words which were welcoming Jesus as their king, as their Messiah. He was the one anointed by God, which had happened at his Baptism, where he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. He was to rule the Jewish people and the Gentiles as their king.

Even today, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, every Sunday, we sing these words, as part of the song, called the Holy, Holy, Holy, or in Latin, it is called the Sanctus. The first part of this song, is from Isaiah’s vision, where he sees the Lord seated upon this throne, high and lifted up. In John’s Gospel, we read that Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it… John clearly says that Isaiah in his vision, where the angels were singing the words, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts”, saw the Lord Jesus Christ, in his divinity, before he entered the world in the womb of Virgin Mary and took on human flesh. So in the Lord’s Supper, we welcome Jesus as our God, when we call him the Lord of hosts, the same Lord of hosts that Isaiah saw. And then, in the second part of the song, we say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! Here we welcome Jesus as our Messiah, as our King, as the anointed Son of David, into our midst, into our little Zion, into our little Jerusalem gathered here today, just as the people did on Palm Sunday, welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem with palm branches, placing their clothes on the road, because they recognised the great holiness of Jesus, not wanting even the donkey’s feet to touch the road!

It's a wonderful custom that the church from ancient times has handed down to us over the centuries to sing this song, the “Holy, holy, holy”. If only today, we caught the slightest little glimpse of it.

So, we also read that all of the things that were happening on Palm Sunday took place because it was prophesied in advance. John writes: As it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt. In Matthew, it says: Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. It would be a wonderful thing to go through this prophesy and really study and learn it, but we might leave it for today, and come back to it next year, or on another occasion.

Now, I’d like to think for a moment on the fact that Jesus is our king, and that the people here welcome him as their king, and what that means for us. You know, of course, that Jesus, when he teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, gives them the words: Your kingdom come. Now, in the Small Catechism, Luther explains this very well, when he says:

What does this mean? The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.

If we think about Palm Sunday, we see the crowds welcoming Jesus, but even if there were no crowds, Jesus would see still be the king, and he would still be there. The occasion is about the king, not about the people in the kingdom. Still, however, it is important that we do welcome Jesus as our king, just as the crowd really did. He is our Saviour, so we say “Hosanna”! And He is also our Lord and our King, and so we say “Blessed is He, or Blessed is the King, who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In the Small Catechism, we read further

How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.

This is a wonderful simple explanation. We see from here that the kingdom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of Jesus, is a kingdom of the Holy Spirit. Now, it is very important for us to realise that without the Holy Spirit, there is no kingdom of God, and the church—whatever it calls itself and whatever it looks like—would be completely dead. It would be like the Valley of Dry Bones that the prophet Ezekiel writes about. However, we were all born into the world like this: dead in our trespasses and sins, and completely unable to fear, love and trust in God, and full of all kinds of evil and sinful thoughts and inclinations. And so, if we are to be converted to the Christian faith, we need the Holy Spirit to come and enter into us, and change our wills, to change our hearts, to give us a completely new heart, and new mind, so that we may believe the Gospel. And the Holy Spirit does this through the Word and the Sacraments: He works in people through the powerful of Word of God, he brings people into his Kingdom through Baptism, and feeds and sustains us through the Lord’s Supper. We also confess in the Small Catechism:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

So, as we gather together as Christians, in God’s kingdom, as people who have been renewed by the Holy Spirit, through the Word and the Sacraments, we come to Him, calling upon Him to convert people, to change people, to keep on changing us, to enlighten people with His gifts, to sanctify people, and keep people in the true faith. So this is what we’re talking about when we pray: Your kingdom come, in the Lord’s Prayer. We’re not building Jesus his kingdom ourselves, but we rely in everything totally and in every way and in every aspect for the Holy Spirit to build and establish his kingdom among us.

Now, one thing I’d like to mention is that there are many Christians today who are waiting for a kind of kingdom of Jesus, but it’s built on shaky foundations. And many Christians today are thinking about the end of the world, and many people are becoming interested in the Christian faith, because they are looking around at the world and wondering if there’s some great evil afoot, and what can be done about it. And so, I’ve heard in the last couple of years many people asking questions about whether this thing is the mark of the beast, or whether this war is prophesied in the Scriptures, and all kinds of things like that. Now, there are many Christians that I meet today who believe that Jesus will return before the end of the world and establish a 1000 year reign upon this earth. This is called, the “Millenium”, and this teaching is called “Millenialism”. There have been a few prominent Christians who believed in Millenialism, the most famous being Irenaeus, who was a bishop in the French city of Lyon.

Now, in the early days of the Lutheran church in Australia, this was the main reason why there was a split between the two churches in 1846 that eventually became the ELCA and the UELCA, until they were united in 1966, 120 years later.

Now, in the 19^th century, when Lutherans first came to this country, these were times when many Christians were interested in these matters about the end of the world. We call this subject, “Eschatology”, which means “words or things to do with the end”. And there were many sects that began during the 19^th century, in the 1800s, that were heavily based on these matters, like the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Many Lutherans, and all kinds of Christians were caught up with these things. Unfortunately, many Christians in the larger churches don’t teach or even talk about the last things, or eschatology, at all, and so the only people who do, tend to be the Pentecostals, or other groups like the Adventists, or Christadelphians, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And this is part of the reason why people are attracted to these groups. And then, because of the liberal, modern, false spirit that has pervaded many churches, they don’t even treat these matters as the Word of God, and easily dismiss them and discard them.

The main passage about this is in Revelation 20, verse 4, where it says: I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Now, it would be good to have some kind of special bible study on this some time, but you can see that the people who reign with Christ for a thousand years are the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus. This is a passage which speaks of the separation of the body and the soul. The people who reign with Christ are souls of the ones who have been killed, beheaded. So, if we are talking about people’s souls after they have died, we’re not talking about something that happens on this earth, but rather in heaven. Also, it doesn’t say that Christ will reign for a thousand years, but rather than these souls will reign with him for a thousand years. So, for example, I might say: I lived with my parents at home for 20 years. But that doesn’t tell you how long my parents lived in that house. It only tells you how long I lived with them. So, the souls of the beheaded reign with Jesus for 1000 years, but Jesus reigns forever and ever. It doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ reign, only about how long they reign with him. Now, there’s many more things that we could say about this, and about the book of Revelation, but we’ll have to leave it for another time.

I have met people, who say, though, that when we pray, “Your kingdom come”, we’re simply asking Jesus to bring on the millennium. And this is wrong, and it’s not true.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus enters into Jerusalem, and is crowned and receives a physical coronation on this earth. But it’s a completely different from what we expect. Our reading from Philippians today tells us about it, where it speaks about how Christ became obedient to death, even death on a cross, and then speaks about his ascension into heaven, where he is crowned in glory, in heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father.  

So, on Palm Sunday, we commemorate the fact that Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and is welcomed as its king. And then, during this Holy Week, he receives his coronation, but it is done in mockery. We read: Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. You see here, they put the royal robe on him, the scarlet robe… and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head… You see here, they give him a king’s crown…  and they put a reed in his right hand. You see here, they give him a royal sceptre. In Psalm 110 it says: The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty sceptre. Rule in the midst of your enemies! You can see Jesus with his mock-sceptre, ruling in the midst of his enemies, submitting to the mockery and laying down his life for the sheep. And then we read: And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. Here we see true words, with wrong motives and wrong intentions, but in actual fact, here they kneel before Jesus and hail him. We preach Christ crucified—a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

And so, this gives us a picture of the Kingdom of Jesus on this earth. The earthly coronation is true, but done in mockery. Just as the king is mocked, the kingdom is also mocked. Just as the shepherd is mocked, the sheep are mocked. And so, it is the Holy Spirit who empowers and strengthens the church and the kingdom of Jesus, but under the cross. When he ascends to heaven, the mockery is done away with, and he is completely vindicated with all joy. And we look forward now to that time when we enter into heaven at our death or when Jesus returns if we are still alive at that time, and also to that time at the end of the world when Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, and glorify and redeem our bodies so that we will be like him. 

In the meantime, we—his baptised people, his beloved faithful—welcome Jesus, our humble and gentle king, and we continue to gather around him to hear, and believe and keep his Word, and to partake of his holy feed, his body and blood given to us in the Lord’s Supper. And we pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to lead us and strengthen us, and renew us in the new person, the new self, the new man, until that time when Jesus welcomes us into his presence and we see him with our own eyes. Amen.

  

And the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.