Advent II B [Mark 1:1-8] (10-Dec-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Our reading today speaks about John the Baptist and his ministry. And this comes to us from the very first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Mark writes: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The word “gospel” means “good news”. And particularly in ancient times, when there were various wars going on, the people of a particular city would have been waiting for some kind of messenger to come galloping on his horse down the road to the city gates to tell the people some news: either good news, or bad news. Bad news would be: “the enemy is coming”, “the king is dead”. But good news would be: “they did it!” “We won!” And all the people would shout, “Hooray!” And then they would prepare to get ready for a wonderful celebration for when their king and the army would return, and have music and dancing and food and celebrating!

In our world today, we are faced with a lot of bad news. There are tremendous things happening around the world: wars, famines, refugees. All these things are bad news. Our parliament this week has approved the marriage of two people of the same sex. This is bad news. Sex and gender are things which God has created in each one of us and are his gift, and taking the distinction of gender out of marriage is a serious thing. People in our country in the last year have wanted even to stop children giving Christian cards at Christmas, shops are discouraged from having nativity scenes, Christian Christmas carols are heard less and less on the radio and TV and in shops. This is bad news. But if we go and look back in the days of the Old Testament, we will see there many generations of kings, where God’s own people worshipped idols, golden calves, burned their own children as offerings to evil spirits, conjured up the dead, performed witchcraft, and all kinds of other crazy things. At one time things were so dark that Elijah the prophet despaired, thinking he was the only believer left in the world. Many Christians are feeling like that more and more today.

There are so many passages in the prophets—whether it be Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—where everything looks like all is lost. But God promises to remain faithful—he will always keep a faithful church on earth that holds to his word. You see, when all around us is nothing but sin and shame, we need to realise that the only people who will be part of the church are sinners. God will convert people just as he did to you, and change their hearts, and turn them back to himself. In Isaiah chapter 9 we read that it is not the people who already walk in light that see the great light, but the prophet says: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. And later the prophet says: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. We must remember as we prepare for Christmas that it is precisely to a sinful world with no hope from itself that Jesus our Saviour and our King comes. He comes to no other world than a sinful one, he shines his light on no other world than a dark one, and he brings his joy to no other world than a sad one. And so the angel came at Christmas and said: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

And so also in our reading today, we read about the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So how did this gospel begin? How did the good news begin?

Mark begins by quoting from two of the prophets. The first quote comes from Malachi: Behold I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. The second quote comes from Isaiah: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ Mark applies these two passages to John the Baptist, so that we understand very clearly that the messenger that God sends is John, and the voice of one crying in the wilderness is also John. John is like the messenger who comes into the city after the battle on horseback, and says: “We’ve won! We did it!” He prepares the way for the king to come in so that the people will celebrate when he arrives. He’s like the MC at a wedding, who gets everyone to stand up, charge their glasses, and prepares them to welcome to bridal couple.

So John is a messenger, and a voice. It is so important for pastors when they preach to believe that it is not their ministry, or their word that they are to speak, but that it is God’s ministry, the ministry of Jesus, and it is his word that they speak. Jesus says to his disciples when he sent them out: The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. And so John the Baptist is the voice of one crying the wilderness. John is the simply the voice, but it is not him who crying in the wilderness, but God who cries out in the wilderness using John’s voice.

Both of the prophets, Malachi and Isaiah, say that this messenger, this voice— John—is sent to do one thing: Malachi says that he will prepare your way. Isaiah says: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Do you hear this word “prepare”? Can you imagine if an army had won a battle, and the war was ended, but nobody knew about it in advance? Can you imagine if at the end of World War II if all the Australian troops simply came home and marched through the streets without anyone knowing about it? There would be no ticket parade, no celebration, nothing! They needed a man on the radio—a voice!—who says: “The war has ended!” And so he “prepares the way” for the troops!

And so, John also prepares the way for Jesus, so that when he comes, people are expecting him and they recognise him. And so, let’s read about what John was actually doing to prepare people. We read: John appeared, baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.

Some of you have told me about your travels out to Queensland’s “wild west”, and some of you might have visited the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service out at Longreach. Earlier this year, I visited the Royal Flying Doctor’s museum in Dubbo. And we watched a video there about all these “bushwackers” in the outback, and how they looked after their health. One man had cut a skin cancer off his own arm with a knife! The interviewer said: “Aren’t there germs on that?” And the man replied, “No, not at all! I once saw a couple of germs on my knife, but not anymore!”

Now, in some sense, this is the kind of person that John the Baptist is. He’s like one of those bushwackers from the outback! There is John, dressed in camel’s hair, a belt made out of home-made leather, and what was his food? Locusts and wild honey. When we think of locusts, we normally think of them as a pest. I’ve never been in a locust plague, but in the book of Exodus, we read that locusts were one of the plagues that God sent over Egypt. The crops would have been completely destroyed. A man once visited me in Victoria, a week after he had been driving through a locust plague. You can imagine the front of this car was just full of splatter!

And yet, in the book of Leviticus, God gave certain foods to the Jewish people as clean, and forbade them from eating certain other foods. You might know that Jewish people even today don’t eat pork. When it came to insects, there were also some that God forbade, and some that God allowed. In Leviticus 11, it says: You may eat… the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind. But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. Honey was also made by bugs, by bees! And so you can see how John survived in the desert right at the bottom of the food-chain, wonderfully trusting in God’s own hand to provide for him, relying on locusts for food, and bees for honey.

Now, what’s amazing about John is that God sends him (of all people!)—not a respectable, educated man from the city, but a bushwacker from the outback, the kind that has to cut his own skin cancers off with a knife! And so, we learn a powerful message here: When God sends a man to preach, we should take no notice of the man, but of the Word he preaches. Because it is God’s word that saves us, not the preacher. If the preacher offends us because of something about him we don’t like, then we need to be careful that we’re not cutting off from ourselves God’s word.

And so, what was John doing? First of all, he was baptising. But he wasn’t doing it without explaining it, and he wasn’t doing it in silence. The same goes for us in the church: when we baptise a person, it never happens in silence. But it always happens together with God’s word. So when we actually baptise a person, the pastor says: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We use God’s word, and the exact words that Jesus told us to use. But also, we teach people about what baptism does and what it means for us, that baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. Jesus said: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them, but not only baptising, but also teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And so this is also what John was doing. He was preaching the word of God. It says, he was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And we see that a wonderful series of mass conversions comes about because of this. Now, today people often think that the Holy Spirit can be manipulated and almost fooled into having revivals and mass conversions. And in our country, mass conversions like this rarely happen. In Africa, or in Asia, we might read about many stories of mass conversions. At the time of Luther, we read about how many, many people turned from the superstitious practices of the middle ages and started listening to the bible and heard the Gospel. One thing though that those people had that many people in our country don’t have is a conviction that the bible is God’s word. John the Baptist could have preached anything from the whole Old Testament Scriptures, because it says that he was preaching repentance for forgiveness of sins. The whole bible can be broken down into these two teachings: repentance and forgiveness, law and Gospel. And so it’s so important for us today to confess clearly that, as St Paul says: All Scripture is God-breathed, or inspired by God. That the writers of the bible were moved by the Holy Spirit, that the Word of God is truth, that the Scripture cannot be broken, as Jesus says. Proverbs 30 says: Every word of God proves true. Our congregation’s constitution says: We believe and accept without reservation the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as a whole and in all their parts, as the divinely inspired, written and inerrant word of God, and as the only infallible source and norm for all matters of faith, doctrine, and life. The reason why it’s so important to hold to this is because when we hear or read something that we don’t agree with, and that shows us our sin, if we don’t believe that this is God’s pure, clear word, then we will always harden our stubborn hearts, and we won’t change our minds and repent when God calls us to, because God’s Word is the only way that he calls us to repentance. There is never a time at any stage of our life when God does not say to us: You need to change, your life is not as it should be, it must be different from what it is now! Until our last breath, we will never be free from sin. And so, this is how John prepares the way for the Lord: he preaches God’s law, and his strict judgment against sin. We don’t prepare ourselves for the Lord through our own works, but the Holy Spirit himself prepares us by convicting us of our sin through his Word. Hebrews 4 says: The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…and no creature is hidden from its sight. And if we don’t believe that the Scripture is God’s perfect word, we will never know our sin, we can never be prepared, and never be ready for Jesus. Who needs a Saviour, when we don’t know what we are being saved from?

But also, when we’re crushed and burdened by the conviction of our sin, even more in those times we need to trust that the bible is God’s word, because the Word of God is the only means by which God applies to us his forgiveness. There is not one single sin that Jesus has not atoned for and died for and sacrificed himself for you for. Jesus is our Lord and our God, our perfect and faithful and trustworthy Saviour.

And so we read how the people went to John the Baptist confessing their sins. It is a daily task of us Christians to confess our sins to Jesus, just as he teaches us to pray: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

But also, John’s baptism is not just to call people to repentance, but it is for the forgiveness of sins. This is the same as our baptism. And why can John say that it is for forgiveness? Because he points to Jesus, and he says: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John himself does not give forgiveness, but he points to Jesus who gives forgiveness. He says: After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

And so, the same goes for us. Pastors baptise people with water, but because of God’s powerful and inspired word, we trust that Jesus is also here baptising people not just with water, but also with the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, Peter said: Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for what?... for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive what?... you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here we can see that the baptism which is performed with water and the word by human hands in the church is the means by which Jesus the Lord of heaven and earth sends us his Holy Spirit. And so, what a wonderful privilege and a gift it is to continually hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in the word of God, through the preaching of repentance and forgiveness, through law and Gospel, to strengthen and ground us in faith until our dying breath.

Jesus is mightier than John, because John is nothing but a voice. John is the messenger, but Jesus is the king who has won the battle and the victory belongs to him! And so Jesus, our Lord and our God, comes into our city and shares with us the spoils of war: he has won the forgiveness of sins, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and he is the one who sends and baptises [you] with the Holy Spirit. And that is good news, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the best news that could ever be spoken. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful gift of your Word, the knowledge of our sin, your word of forgiveness, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Memorial Service for Roy Hoffmann [1 Corinthians 15:51-58] (28-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 11am.

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

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on immortality, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 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.

Prayer: Lord, sanctify us in the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.

You know: death really isn’t all that mysterious.

At least, it isn’t mysterious in the same sense that St Paul says in these words for us today: Behold! I tell you a mystery!

Death happens, we see it, we know it. We could say it’s kind of mysterious how death has such a profound effect on us. We could say it’s mysterious how death arouses in us a desire for eternity. We could say that it’s kind of mysterious how we grieve when someone dies, like Roy. We could say it’s mysterious.

But that’s not what St Paul’s talking about when he says: Behold! I tell you a mystery!

When St Paul says these things: it’s a bit like when the Prophet Isaiah says: A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass... the grass withers, the flowers fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. That’s a mystery!

Or when Jesus gathers his disciples together on top of a mountain, sits down like a king on his throne with the majesty that belongs to him, opens his mouth and teaches his disciples and says: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. That’s a mystery! – Blessed are those who mourn.... for they will be comforted. What a promise! But what will they be comforted with? They will be comforted with the mystery of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Therefore, as St Paul says, we do not grieve as others do who have no hope.

And it’s this mystery that Paul wants to tell to the church of all times and all places when he says these words: Behold! I tell you a mystery. He wants to draw you in. He wants to invite you into the hidden chambers of God’s heart and show you what lies in store for each Christian who dies in the faith.

In Ephesians, St Paul says: To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

This mystery – he says – was hidden in the dark recesses of God’s heart. It wasn’t for us to know about it yet. But Paul says, I am called to preach this mystery to you. I am called to tell you that the unknown God has a name, and he has risen his Son Jesus Christ from the dead.

So, what St Paul says in our text today, echoes those words of Jesus: Blessed are you ears for they hear and your eyes for they see. For many of the prophets longed to hear what you hear and did not hear it, and to see what you see but did not see it. And so St Paul says: Behold! I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

Ask yourselves: Do you believe those words? Listen to how simple they are, and feel their power. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. As we come together today for Roy’s funeral, we come to give thanks for the life of a man that all of us so much enjoyed. We come to thank God for the great gift that he gave many people through the person of Roy.

And in some sense, Roy’s death marks somewhat the end of an era. It brings to end a chapter of family history. All of us here will miss Roy together, but in different ways and for different reasons. But it’s not the end, full stop. People outside the Christian faith will sit and ponder and consider whether or not there is an afterlife, or as people often say, a “here-after”.

But Christians not only believe that there is a “here-after”, but that it is takes a certain shape and has a certain form, and structure and order to it. It’s not something that’s non-descript, but in all its indescribability, St Paul, with such confidence, with such boldness, almost arrogance, and with such simplicity, sets out to describe what it looks like. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

Right back in Genesis 3, after the fall into sin, God said to Adam: For you are dust and to dust you shall return. There’s also a famous passage in Ezekiel where the prophet is brought into the middle of a valley of dry bones, and God says to him, Son of Man, can these bones live? What a wonderful confession of faith it is to come to the church today and say Amen to these words: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

In our Gospel reading which we read today we heard about Lazarus, and his sister Martha. Before he arrives at Martha’s house, Jesus says to his disciples: Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, and I go to wake him up.

There was also an occasion when Jesus saw all the people outside Jairus’ house, weeping and carrying on because of the death of his daughter, and he said: Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.

So our confession of faith today is not simply that Roy Hoffmann has died, but something even more profound, he has fallen asleep with Jesus, in Jesus, he rests in Jesus.

Behold, I tell you a mystery! We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall gathered together again and transformed and glorified, and awake again to see another day, a more glorious, and a brighter day that we have ever seen before.

We shall all be changed. How? In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. When? At the last trumpet.

For the trumpet shall sound, says St Paul, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

It’s true when the prophet Isaiah says: All flesh is grass. The grass withers and the flowers fade.

And for many of us, it’s been a difficult thing to see these words come to fulfilment in Roy’s body in the last few months. We’ve learnt from experience now, that this body is in actual fact perishable. We learn this from our observances, our experience.

Now, we learn something new by faith, and only by faith. We learn something new now not through our eyes, but through our hears. St Paul says: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

For the trumpet will sound and dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

Today we are not here to just commemorate the end of something. Christian funerals and memorials are occasions where we commemorate the preparation for something new, for the future work of God that we still wait for – we look forward to the resurrection of the dead.

St Paul writes: When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Do you hear those words: Death is swallowed up. Devoured! Chewed up and crunched to bits.

Death is swallowed up in victory!

Dreams are swallowed up with realities!

Hopes and wishes are swallowed up with real things!

Faith is swallowed up by sight!

Tears are swallowed up with joy!

Suffering is swallowed up with peace!

Mourning is swallowed up with comfort!

Death is swallowed up with resurrection, with victory.

That’s what we come here today to confess as a Christian church: that each Christian will be healed by Jesus from their perishability, each Christian will be healed from their mortality, each Christian will be healed from their corruption.

In the Apostles’ Creed we say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Can you see the order, the structure here? The Holy Spirit calls us by the gospel into the church, in the church we become a fellowship, a communion of holy people, of saints through Holy Baptism, in this Christian church our sins are daily and richly forgiven, and then this forgiveness of sins blossoms into the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Everything in our text today from St Paul is completely beyond our experience. These are things that are only grasped by faith. In a sense, the Scripture speaks to us from the other side of the grave from one who has seen what is there and now tells us who are still here. And what is seen there on the other side of the grave is so great and so magnificent, that it can only be told to us, by saying: Behold! I tell you a mystery!

In the last two verses of this text today, we read:

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.

The death of a person is a testimony that they like everyone was conceived and born in sin. The only exception to this is Jesus Christ himself, who became sin for us, and took on sin for us.

That’s the sting we feel and experience today. The sting of death is sin. As St Paul says: The wages of sin is death.

But then we also read: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We already heard before that death will be swallowed up by victory. But here’s the thing: Here, the text says: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We don’t earn the victory! We don’t work for the victory. God simply gives us the victory, as a free gift, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it doesn’t say, he will give us, but he gives us the victory, now, in the church, through Holy Baptism and through faith. He gives us the victory every time we eat and drink the body and blood with all those who have been given the victory before us, with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

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

May God bless us today as we remember Roy, whom we knew and loved. Jesus himself knows the sting: he wept himself at the death of Lazarus. But he has died for your sins on the cross, and risen again for them, as a physical and historical proof that you will also rise with him, and also, as St Paul says, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

Jesus himself says: Blessed, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed. Amen.

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

Pentecost XXII (Proper 27 A) [Matthew 25:1-13] (12-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

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

In our Gospel reading today, we read a very rich parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Ten Virgins. We read: Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. The scene that Jesus paints here is one of ten virgins who are bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive so that they can go into a wedding reception, or a wedding banquet. At weddings, it is always important that things run on time, and there are a lot of jokes about brides running late. If a bride arrives early, the car might drive around the block a few times so that they arrive at the church at the right time. But in our parable, it is a groom—a bridegroom—that everyone is waiting for, and he is so late that everyone falls asleep.

In our reading, we read that the ten virgins went to meet the bridegroom. And later we read: At midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ So who is the bridegroom in this reading? The bridegroom is Jesus himself. One of the first things we read about in the book of Genesis is the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God himself as the match-maker and the celebrant. And then, right at the end of the bible, we read in the book of Revelation: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A couple of chapters earlier, we read where an angel says: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Right back in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah, we read about a faithful servant of God speaking of God like their husband: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. In Ephesians, Paul has a lot to say about this: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And so you can see this wonderful reality described in the bible here of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as his bride. St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He is not speaking only to the Corinthians who were outwardly celibate and virgins, but to the whole church here. And in the church at Corinth, there were virgins and widows, married people, and also people who had converted to Christ from prostitution, who were adulterers and who had slept around, and also Paul even mentions people who had converted to Jesus after having committed incest. But when these people repented and turned to Christ, they became virgins again, not because of themselves and their own righteousness and purity, but because of Christ’s righteousness which covered them. As it says in Isaiah: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In our reading, we read about the ten virgins: Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

On one hand, in the bible, the church is always depicted as Christ’s bride. But in this reading the bride isn’t mentioned, only these virgins, these bridesmaids. And so, we learn from this that in this life, in the church on earth, the bride of Christ is hidden, veiled. The church is often not a glorious place at all. It often seems quite ordinary, even a bit uninteresting and boring and commonplace. Sometimes in the church, there are fights and disagreements. From the outside, the church seems to have a lot of hypocrites. Many people don’t want anything to do with the church, because they see a community of ordinary sinners, and if God were really in charge of the world, why would he bother wasting his time with that lot?

But in this life, we don’t see the bride in all her glory. We only see ten virgins, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. On one hand, the church is found wherever Christ’s word and the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and where his sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are carried out according to Christ’s command and institution. The Word and the Sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means that he uses to create faith in people. But on the other hand, not everyone who hears the gospel believes it. But faith is not something that you produce in yourself, but it is something that the Holy Spirit works in your heart. You might even think: “I want to believe, but I can’t”. St Paul writes that God wills and works in us to his good pleasure. If you want to believe, it means that God is already working in you, and you didn’t even know it. Thank him for working in you—he will continue to work in you, and he has already produced faith in your heart.

Now, the Holy Spirit is not a toy. He is the living God himself, and the Spirit of the Living God, and the Spirit of the living Jesus, who has risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit will not be manipulated. And so he works whenever and wherever he pleases in those who hear the Gospel. In John we read: The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What this means is that just as we might be sitting inside one day and can hear the wind outside, so also when we hear the Word of God, we are listening to God’s own wind, the Holy Spirit. But just as you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, so also we can’t see the Holy Spirit coming, and we can’t see the Holy Spirit working in this person and that person. As Paul says: I preached, [someone else] watered, but God gave the growth.

And so, we see this happen on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples, but not everyone who sees this happening believes it or recognises it. We read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” Some were interested, but some mocked. When Paul preached in Athens, we read: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So what we learn here is that we never know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. We should never second-guess him and say: That person’s never going to listen. We simply speak the word and go home, but the Holy Spirit then continues to work and create faith in people.

So on one hand, the word of God and the Holy Spirit comes to us from outside of us. And all of us hear the word of God altogether. But God doesn’t speak his word in such a way that it hits you on the head like a rock and bounces off. He calls you to believe it. And so, even though all kinds of people might come to church and hear the word, God calls each individual to be saved personally. Later in our reading we read: As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

We learn a few things here. Firstly, we learn that Christ calls us to receive the gift of salvation personally. When the time comes, it will be too late for the individual virgins to share their oil with each other. We can’t rely on others. We can’t say: I’m saved, because I go to church with bla-bla-bla, and he’s a good guy. Or: I’m saved because my grandma is a Christian. Or: I’m saved, because my grandfather, or my son, is a pastor. Or: I’m saved because I go to the church Martin Luther started, and he knew what it was all about. Or: I’m saved because come from such-and-such a country. No: we can’t get our righteousness from each other. We can only receive our salvation from Jesus and him alone. Now, sometimes, when a person dies, we don’t about their salvation, and so we might commend them to God in prayer and to his mercy. But this does not mean that our good works or our prayers can earn salvation for someone else. Some of you might have a relative or a friend who is not saved and is an unbeliever. Of course, we should pray for them every day and not give up. But we don’t pray that we would be their saviour, but that Jesus would be their Saviour. So salvation is through Jesus and Jesus alone. Peter says in Acts: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So the oil cannot be shared between fellow virgins. It can only be received from Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the living and active word of God.

But secondly, there is a very important teaching here that not everyone will be saved. This is a very unpopular thing to say, but we must learn from the Scripture and not from our own ideas that there will be a judgment, and that each person will be judged by God. There are a number of parables where Jesus teaches this: one of them is the wheat and the weeds, where at the end, the wheat and weeds are separated into different piles. Another parable like this is about the drag net which pulls in all kinds of fish, and then they are sorted into the good and the bad. And here in the parable of the ten virgins, there are two types of virgins: the wise and the foolish. The wise virgins are ready and prepared and they go into the wedding feast, but then there are the foolish virgins who are not ready and it is too late for them, and then the door is shut. So you can see that there is a judgment.

Now today there are many people who don’t believe this. First of all, many people say that there is no distinction between God and his creation. They say that God is everything, God is the universe, or that God is in everything. The first verse of the bible contradicts this and says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, and the heaven and the earth are his creation. Second, many people say that the Holy Spirit is in everyone. This is not true. Everyone is born with a conscience, everyone is born with a soul, but to be saved, Jesus says you must be born again, a second time, in Holy Baptism, and God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift. Instead of being united around Jesus and his word, many people today just want to be united in their feelings and experiences, and so there would be no difference between the Christian faith and any other faith. But Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If this isn’t true, then Jesus is a liar, and he’s not the true God. If the words of Jesus are not absolute truth, then nothing in this world is right or wrong, there is no good or bad, no heaven or hell, and of course, the church has no mission, and the missionary zeal of the church completely dries up.

Instead, the bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and he has made heaven and earth as his creation, which is distinct from him. Jesus is true God who entered into this creation and took on human flesh, and then died on the cross and made a payment and an atonement for sin. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the end, we will be judged; but through Jesus, forgiveness and eternal life has been won for us, and is ours through faith. Jesus is our Mediator, our Advocate, our Defender. The Holy Spirit brings us the Gospel, and through the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. The Holy Spirit is the oil in the lamps, and the light of the Gospel in our hearts is the light. And so while we have the light of the Gospel shining among us on this earth, we need to make good use of the time we have to fill up our flasks with God’s oil. If we leave it, and refuse to believe the Gospel, there may be a time, then, when it is too late for us.

And so, at the very end of our reading, Jesus says: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus here is calling us to repent and to reconcile ourselves with God now, in this life, while we have the Gospel. Psalm 95 says: Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah says: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. St Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. And in Galatians we read: As we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone. The time for acquiring faith, and believing in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit is now. It is not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. When we hear the Gospel, we can’t guarantee that it will be there for us when we need it. We might say: I’ll read the bible at home another day, but who knows if later you’ll go blind in your old age? People might say: I won’t listen in church all that carefully, but then later on they go deaf and it’s too late? They might say: I’d like to come to church, but then later they find themselves unable to come when they want to.

Or someone might say: I’m going to church at Easter. I haven’t gone to church for a long time. And then they go along, and the preacher tells everyone that Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead after all. It’s too late – the Gospel isn’t preached in that church any more, and the glory of God has departed from that place. They rejected God earlier, and when they sought him later, they couldn’t find him anymore. They might call for a pastor to come and see them on their deathbed, but then they can’t find anyone to come, because by that time, either no Christians live there anymore, or the Christians who do are too lazy and apathetic to come.

The time of grace is now. And while we have the Gospel, our Lord Jesus doesn’t call us to be apathetic, but to fill up, to stock up our vessels, and to keep our lamps burning. And when our lamps burn brightly, and when they burn with the wonderful light of God’s word and his Gospel, then the words will be fulfilled: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Others may see the light in the lamps, and will say: I want to go and fill up on the same oil as they. I want to fill my lamp with the same word of God, and the same Gospel, and the same Holy Spirit.

And so, let’s be ready and prepared. Let’s continually learn God’s word, receive the free forgiveness of sins, and to fill up our vessels continually, so that when the time comes we can wake from our sleep and hear the words: Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him’. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our loving bridegroom, keep us watchful and ready, and continually fill our lamps with your precious Word and your Holy Spirit. Wake us up from our sleep, forgive us all our sins, and lead us into the wedding banquet of eternal life. Amen.

Sermon for All Saints (5-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

May you be strengthened with his power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

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

When you hear the word “saint”, what do you normally think of? I think most people probably think of particularly significant Christian people who lived a wonderful life on this earth, who have now died.

Now the word “saint” actually means a “holy person”. When we talk about saints, it can mean two different things: it can mean those Christian people who have now died, but it can also mean Christian people who are still living, and who are wrestling in this life, and struggling with their sin and their problems. The first kind of saint—a saint who has left this earthly life—is a person who is now free of sin, but the second kind of saint—a Christian person who is still alive—is a person who is still wrestling with their sin. The second kind of saint is also a sinner at the same time as being a saint, whereas the first kind is not a sinner anymore because they have been set free from sin having passed through death. But we’ll come back to this in a minute.

Let’s talk about the communion of saints. In the Apostle’s Creed, we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”. And this is actually another name for the church itself. Now how does a person become a saint, and become part of this communion of saints? Well—Jesus sends out his workers with his Holy Spirit to gather a church to Himself, using the word of God, and the Sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. So Jesus himself actually calls us to be part of his kingdom, to be part of his fellowship, to be part of his communion, through his living word, which is spoken on earth. That’s what the church is here for: to make sure that God’s word is spoken here on earth, so that sinners may come to Jesus and be made part of his kingdom. Sinners—like you and me—enter into the kingdom of Jesus by being baptised, by being born again by water and the Spirit, or as St Paul says, being washed with water and the word. Holy Baptism is that wonderful event where Jesus gathers us to himself and brings us into his kingdom, and gives us his Holy Spirit. And Jesus doesn’t just set us out on the road to heaven, but he also feeds us along the way, and gives us his body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. And so, Jesus continually gathers us together and strengthens us on the road.

Now, the word of God, and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are not given to the church on earth as some kind of magic charm. Jesus doesn’t want us to look at his word and at baptism or at the Lord’s Supper as if we’re some cow in a paddock, starting at a new blade of grass in the field. No—the word of God—which is also the thing that empowers baptism and the Lord’s Supper—calls us to faith. The reason why God speaks his word, and baptises us and gives us the Lord’s Supper, is so that we believe in it! In fact, through God’s word, the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts. God gives us his word of law—to call us to repent, and to change our lives, and live differently. This word shows us that we are sinners. But then he also gives us sinners his word of Gospel—which points us to Christ, and what he has done for us in his death and resurrection from the dead. And it is the Gospel that makes us saints, that makes us holy people—not because we are already perfect or because we had made such an good effort, but because of Christ and his holiness. Christ then takes his righteousness and his holiness and he completely covers over all of our sin with it. Our whole lives as Christians is then learning to recognise our sin, to put it behind us, and to receive the forgiveness of sins. A Christian person, or a holy person, or a saint, is not someone who has achieved perfection in this life, because that is impossible. The only person who has lived a completely sinless life is Jesus. But when we trust in Jesus, and his sinlessness, and his holiness, then God takes your account and adds all of your sin to Jesus’ account. He charges the bill to Jesus, and Jesus paid it in full with his blood. And then God takes all of the righteousness, and holiness, and perfection that belongs to Jesus, and he adds it to your account. This is what it means in Genesis 15, where we read that Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Because of Jesus, God has counted his righteousness to your account. This means that are now free to begin a Christian life, a saintly, holy life. You will never achieve perfection in this life, but you will only begin it, one step and one day at a time, with Jesus your Saviour guiding you along the way, and forgiving all your new sins and mess-ups along the way.

Now, even though God calls us through his word and his sacraments, it is only the Holy Spirit who creates faith in people. There are some people who hear and are baptised, and who come to the Lord’s Supper, but don’t believe in them. They people are not saints, but are hypocrites. They are only part of the church in an outward, external way. This is a communion which includes believers and non-believers, saints and non-saints. But there is also an internal, hidden, spiritual communion of saints, which exists only among those who believe the promises of God in His word, and believe in God’s work in their baptism, and believe in Jesus’ work and presence and gifts in the Lord’s Supper.

But then, the bible uses the word “saints” in two ways, as we mentioned before. The first way is to mean those who trust in Jesus in this life and are still fighting against sin and the devil, and are still living their Christian life under the cross. But the second way the bible uses the word “saints” is to mean those people who have endured their hardship but are now in heaven, praising God. So for example, in Acts we read that Peter came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. This is the first meaning, referring to people like us, who are both saints and sinners at the same time. Many of the letters of Paul are addressed to the saints who are at Corinth, or at Rome, or wherever. But then we also have examples of the second meaning, such as when after Jesus died there was an earthquake, and it says: many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Here “saints” means those who were no longer sinners, but had died.

So, when we say that we believe in the “communion of saints”, what are we talking about? Are we talking about a communion of people on this earth who are both saints and sinners like us, or are we talking about a communion of people in heaven who have finished their struggle with sin and who are now perfect? The answer is that both we Christians who are alive and those Christians who are dead are together one communion of saints. St Paul says that we Christians are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. So when we call the church “the communion of saints”, we mean not just the members of the church that are still doing battle in this life, and fighting the good fight of faith, and wrestling against their sin, but also the church in heaven that is now perfect and glorious. We are altogether one church, one communion of saints. There are not two communions, but only one communion. There are not two churches, but one church. Sometimes we call the church on earth the “church militant” and the church in heaven the “church triumphant”. We are all one church, we are just on different sides of the grave. We are still struggling, but their struggle is completely over now.

In Hebrews chapter 12, the writer reveals to us something that is very special about what it is that we are part of when we gather here as the church. We read: You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to the multitude of many thousands of angels and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven; and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Now, we could talk about those verses all day, but listen to those words that we have come to the multitude of many thousands of angels, to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven…to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Those who have died in the Christian faith are with Jesus, and we also in this life on earth come to meet the same Jesus. We Christians don’t just share all kinds of wonderful blessings of the Holy Spirit with each other here on this earth in the church, but we also belong to the same fellowship, the same communion of those holy people and saints who are already in heaven. In Ephesians 2, it says that God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In Colossians, we read that our heavenly Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. To be transferred out of darkness into Jesus’ kingdom means to enjoy now the fellowship not just with other Christians on this earth, but also to be one fellowship with all those who have already died and are now in Paradise with Jesus.

In our order of service that we use week after week, we say some words before the Lord’s Supper which reflect this teaching. When we have the Lord’s Supper, we sing a song called the “Holy, holy, holy”, or in Latin, it is called the “Sanctus”. This song is sung by angels in the bible. We read about the angels singing these words in the book of Isaiah and also in Revelation. But before we sing this, the pastor says that we are singing “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven”. Not only are the angels singing with us but also those who have died in the faith, the company of heaven. This is a wonderful confession of faith, and it shows us just what the church on earth is. But it’s not as if the church in heaven are simply joining in with us—the worship of God is going on constantly in heaven, and when we join together as Christians to worship him, we are simply joining in with them. They add their voices to ours, and we add our voices to theirs.

But before we finish this sermon today, I’d like to mention one more thing. When it comes to understanding what it means to live a holy life and to share in God’s holiness, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. When the first people, Adam and Eve, were created, they were perfect, holy, and pure. God had created them in his image. This is the first state or condition of the human race. And what a wonderful thing it must have been to live like that and to have been there!

But then, after that, things changed: there was the fall. Adam and Eve sinned, and since that time, every single human being (except Jesus himself) was conceived and born in sin. Before the fall, there was no sin. But after the fall, then there was sin, and the human race came under the judgment of God.

But then, later, something else changed: there came a Saviour. Jesus died for us on the cross, and he won for us the forgiveness of sins, and he sends us the Holy Spirit. Now, as Christians in this life, it’s not as though we now live without sin, but our sin is forgiven, and is not charged to our account anymore. So we live then as people who are both holy, and saints, but who also live struggling and wrestling against our sin.

So what happens when we die? Well, our bodies and our souls are separated, and for the first time, we will be completely free of our sin. On one hand, we will depart to be with Christ, as it says in Philippians 1. Just like Jesus promised to the thief on the cross, on the day of his death, Today you will be with me in Paradise. But this is not the end. Because God didn’t simply create us as spirits, or souls, but he created us with bodies. In Genesis 2, it says: then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. So what’s going to happen to our bodies? Are they just empty shells, empty husks? No—the Scripture also promises a resurrection of the dead. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must on immortality.

Now, when we go the shop and buy a packet of chips, we throw away the packet in the bin. But God does not treat our bodies like an empty chip packet! He created our bodies, and so in a glorious way, at the end of the world, he promises to glorify our earthly bodies in a new way, and to reunite and redeem our bodies from the dust and the ashes and the ground, and raise them up, and reunite them with our spirits and souls. On one hand, when we die, our souls go to be with Jesus in heaven. On the other hand, our bodies will be buried in the ground. But there will also be a time when body and soul is reunited in a glorious and wonderful way, and our bodies will be raised from the dead. How we will go through this after we have died, we don’t know. At least, we know that we won’t be waiting for all this out in some sort of corridor, or in purgatory, but in heaven with Jesus. But remember, that when that time comes, we will enter not into a life with minutes and days and hours, but as the bible says, eternal life. God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  St Paul also says in Philippians: Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Do you see the wonderful victory of the resurrection of the dead in this passage? Even in 1 Corinthians 15, St Paul says that Christ is the firstborn to rise from the dead. This means that the reason Christ rose from the dead was so that he would be the first, and to point your eyes forward to the day when you also will be risen from the dead. This is what we say in the creed when we say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Now, on the other hand, there is another way in which people look at these things, which is not correct. Instead of seeing Adam and Eve created in the “image of God”, people see humans as having been created as “little gods”. Then when the fall happened, they believe that the problem is that people forget that were created as little gods, and their sin is not that they disobey God, but that they just don’t live up their potential. Then instead of treating Jesus as their Saviour, they see him just as their teacher, who came to remind us humans of the knowledge that we forgot that we really were created as “little gods” after all. And then, when we die, what happens? Instead of believing that they then become free from their sin, they believe that that as “little gods” they are now free from their bodies. This means that they think the body is a bad thing, and just an empty chip packet to be thrown away. But if the body is a bad thing, why did Jesus have one? Why did he choose to have nails and spears put through it? God created us human beings with both body and soul, and he has his Son to redeem us in body and soul, and he will also make us holy in body and soul. And so, this is why, after the Lord’s Supper, we say: The body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood strengthen and preserve you in body and soul to life eternal.

So let’s praise our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for drawing us together in faith into one communion of saints, with all believing Christians throughout the world and all those who have died in Christ. And let’s also praise him for the promise that he has made to us to raise us up with him on the last day together with all those who have died in the faith, who are alive with him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, once again today we come to you to sing our “Holy, holy, holy” with the angels, the archangels and all the company of heaven. Strengthen our faith by the power of your Holy Spirit, until that time when we depart to be with you, and enjoy life together with you in Paradise with all your saints. Amen.

Sermon on Reformation II: The Lord's Supper (22-Oct-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 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.” (1 Cor 11:23-24)

Prayer: May 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’s sermon is the second of a three-part series on the teachings of the Reformation. This year, 2017, we are commemorating the 500^th anniversary since Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church doors in Wittenberg. Next week, we are going to celebrate this anniversary. In last week’s sermon, we were looking at the Doctrine of Justification by faith alone. This is the teaching that we are saved by faith in what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in his resurrection for us. We cannot earn salvation by anything that we do. This teaching is so foundation for us as Christians, and as Lutherans, because it answers the most important question anybody on this earth can ask: What must I do to be saved? We spoke particularly last week about the fact that God’s law exposes our sin, and the Gospel teaches sinners what their Saviour has done for them.

In our sermon this week, we are going to talk about Lord’s Supper. This is also such an important topic because the Lord’s Supper is right at the very centre of the church, and who we are as Christians. The Lord’s Supper is the wonderful food that Jesus prepares for us which continually strengthens us as we walk on our journey through life: it is our weekly banquet where Jesus gives us his own body and blood to eat and to drink.

So let’s first of all read the Scripture which most clearly speaks about the Lord’s Supper, and that is, the words of institution. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we read there the history of when Jesus instituted his special supper. Also, we read these words in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which read like this: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 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.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

In the church, we have all kinds of different names for the Lord’s Supper. In the Small Catechism, Luther calls it “The Sacrament of the Altar.” We don’t often use this name anymore, but it is a useful name to flesh out. A Sacrament is something which God himself has instituted—this means, it was his idea, he came up with it, he invented it, he started it off. And through this event, God brings us the forgiveness of sins through earthly elements, which are attached to his word. So in baptism, the earthly element is water, and in the Lord’s Supper, the elements are bread and wine.

Luther calls it the “Sacrament of the Altar” because the Lord’s Supper normally takes place at the altar. In the Old Testament, the altar was the place where the people offered their sacrifices to God, but for us in the church today, the altar is the place where God places the sacrifice of his own Son for our benefit. Already two-thousand years ago, Christ died on the cross and offered his body and blood as a sacrifice. Today, that same body and blood is placed by God himself on our own altar, so that we may come and partake of these gifts, and receive them into your mouths.

Sometimes, the Lord’s Supper is called the “Lord’s Supper”. This name actually comes from the bible itself, where Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for making a right mess of everything. He says: When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat. It’s as if to say, it’s just your own supper. But then, Paul goes on to teach them about the Lord’s Supper and what it is. It’s called a supper, because Jesus first held it with his disciples in the evening.

We sometimes also call it “Holy Communion”, which comes from St Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10, where he says: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? That word, “participation”, can also be translated, a “communion”. This means we share in something—Jesus shares his body and blood with us in the bread and wine, so that we have this communion with him. Also, sometimes, people call it the Eucharist, which means “a thanksgiving”. It comes from the Greek word, “thank you”. It is a word that means something like the “thanksgiving dinners” which happen every year in America.

In Luther’s Small Catechism, we have a very clear statement about what our church believes about the Lord’s Supper. He says: The Sacrament of the Altar is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.

The most important thing to discuss when it comes to the Lord’s Supper is what it is. Our church believes and teaches that it is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, Luther has a very significant word which he puts there in the catechism. He says: it is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now why does he put in this word “true”? Because there are many people who don’t believe that it really is the body and blood of Christ, and that it is only a symbol. Actually, if we take the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church (that means, the Greek church and the Russian church), the Oriental Orthodox Church (which is the Coptic Orthodox from Egypt and Ethiopia), and the Lutherans, this is the most widely held belief about the Lord’s Supper by Christians all around the world today, and the most widely held belief throughout Christian history.

However, many Christians today don’t believe it, and these are the churches which follow the Reformed opinion. Many—in fact, most—protestant churches hold this opinion. This is the opinion which says that the bread and wine only represent or symbolise the body and blood of Jesus. Lutherans don’t believe this—our church teaches that the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Christ. Why do we hold to this so strongly? The reason is, because on the night Jesus was betrayed, he said: This is my body. This is my blood. He didn’t say that it represented his body, and he didn’t say that it symbolised his body. He said: This is my body.

Now, there are three reasons why people often disagree with this. Firstly, people say: There are other passages in Scripture where Jesus talks in a figurative way about himself. For example, he says: I am the vine. Or: I am the door for the sheep. Now, yes, that is true. But this is a different context. In those passages, Jesus is using a picture of himself to teach his disciples something. With respect to the vine, he is not saying he represents a vine. Jesus is not some insignificant person who represents a cosmic, alien vine in outer-space somewhere. What he saying is that just as a vine has branches, so also we Christians and disciples of Jesus are members of Jesus, we are made part of his body, just like branches on a vine. And just as a vine sends the juice and sap out to all the branches and fruit, so also Jesus fills us with all the gifts of his Holy Spirit, and every gift that we need as we live in his kingdom.

But the Lord’s Supper is a very different thing. Firstly, this happened on the night when he was betrayed. This was his final meal with his disciples. Just as when Jacob was about to die and gathered his sons to give them a blessing, so also Jesus shares this supper with his disciples just as he is about to die. And what do you know about writing a will? You don’t mess around with language. You don’t talk in such a way that can be taken in two ways. Now, this is not just anyone’s will—this is Jesus’ will, and he is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is speaking straight here. He is not messing around with his words. When he says: This is my body, he means that it is his body.

Also, sometimes people say that the answer to the problem lies in the words: Do this in remembrance of me. Some people say: It can’t really be his body, because he says that it is for remembering him. So they say: The Lord’s Supper is simply nothing more than bread and wine, and when we eat and drink it, we remember Jesus. Now, recently, in another sermon, I was talking about this point. In English, when we say “remember” we often mean something that goes on in our heads. But in Hebrew, “remembering” is something that people do. A very clear example of this is when the thief on the cross says to Jesus: Remember me, when you come into your kingdom. He is not simply asking Jesus to think about him, when Jesus is in heaven and the thief has gone to hell. He is not saying, “Remember the good times we had when we on the cross together.” The thief is saying, “When you come into your kingdom, I want you to bring me with you.” I don’t want you simply to think about me, and remember who I was, but I want you to do something for me, and to take me with you. And this is exactly what Jesus does. He says: Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. That’s how Jesus remembers him. He brings him to heaven with him.

And so, in the Lord’s Supper, we do remember Jesus. We remember the wonderful things that Jesus for us and for our salvation. But we don’t remember him, while he is far away and we are all the way down here. He actually comes to meet us, and we remember him in his presence. We remember the fact that he is here! And when Jesus says: Do this in remembrance of me, what is the thing that we actually do? Is it just eating bread and wine? No… The thing that we do in remembrance of Jesus is to eat his body and to drink his blood. Just as Jesus remembered the thief on the cross and brought him with him into heaven, so also Jesus comes and meets us on earth, giving us his body and blood to eat and drink in remembrance of him.

The third thing that people often say is that it is simply not possible. They say: Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, so he can’t be here on earth in the Lord’s Supper. Yes, it’s true: Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. But the thing we need to come back to is the fact that Jesus said: This is my body, this is my blood. If that’s what Jesus said, then we need to leave it up to him to work out how this is possible. But not only that, remember that Jesus actually went and met Paul and converted him on the road to Damascus. Later when Paul was in prison, Jesus went and met him and encouraged him and said: Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome. Even though Jesus ascended into heaven, he could still come and encourage his people. Also, when Jesus gave his disciples the command to baptise, he said: I am with you always to the end of the age. He also said: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Also, remember that Jesus is both true man and true God. We can’t make our body and blood present in churches all throughout the world, because we are not gods. But Jesus has all the power in heaven and earth in his hands, and he knows how to bring about what he promises in his own words.

But the other thing we need to remember is this: Jesus body and blood is not dead flesh and dead blood. We are not cannibals or vampires here. Jesus is risen from the dead, and his whole body is glorified in a wonderful and amazing way because he is also true God. And so, Jesus did not say: This is my arm, or this is my fingernail. At the same time, he didn’t say: this is my spirit, or this is my soul. He said: This is my body, and this is my blood. This is his miracle which he performs, and he gives these things to us in a glorious, invisible way.

Now, if we actually believe that Jesus comes to meet us in the church, to give us his body and blood in this way, this completely changes the way we think about what the church is, and why we are here. I once heard the story about an American theology professor, who visited a Lutheran church in Latvia. Now Latvia was part of the U.S.S.R. for a long time, under communism, and during those years it was very difficult to be a Christian because the church was outlawed in certain ways. So this professor went early to church and sat in the back, and saw a young woman come into the church and she got down on her hands and knees and prostrated herself on the floor to pray, and then got up. The American professor was quite stunned, and said to the young woman, “Why did you do that?” The young woman said, “Why didn’t you?” It’s as if to say: If you know whose house this is, and who it is that comes and meets us here, wouldn’t you be completely in awe?

There’s a wonderful event in the gospels where a blind beggar hears the sounds of a noisy crowd and asks about it. We read: They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” This is exactly what happens in the Lord’s Supper: Jesus of Nazareth passes by and he comes right into this place to meet us and to feed us. If you were alive in those days, you wouldn’t sit at home and say: “Never mind, I’ll see him some other time”, or “I’ll pray to him later.” No—you’d go out and meet him, just like the blind beggar did! The problem is, so many people don’t realise that they are blind, and they don’t know that Jesus is here and comes to meet them. But this is what Jesus promises when he says: This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.

There’s so much to say about the Lord’s Supper, and we can’t say it all in our sermon today. In fact, the great gift of the Lord’s Supper is something that we can spend our whole lifetimes learning, and we still won’t fathom its depths! It is my prayer that the Lord’s Supper—together with Baptism and God’s word—is the thing that is right at the centre of our life together as Christians here in this place. And old Christian writer once called the Lord’s Supper “a medicine of immortality, an antidote, that we may not die but live in God through Jesus Christ, a cleansing remedy through warding off and driving out evils.” (Ignatius of Antioch). Or another old Christian writer said: “If those who touched the hem of His garment were properly healed, how much more shall we be strengthened if we have Him in us whole?” (John Chrysostom)

But before we finish, we need to realise something very profound. If Jesus is going to come and enter into us in this wonderful way, how is it going to happen without him completely overpowering us with his majesty and even destroying us? How is it going to happen that Jesus does not completely crush us with the weight of his glory, he being so perfect, are we being so weak and sinful? It can only happen in one way: He has to forgive us our sins. And this is exactly what Jesus does. He says: This is my body, which is given for you. This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord’s Supper, not only gives us Jesus’ body and blood, but he also gives us the promise of the forgiveness of sins connected to it. And this word of Jesus commands faith from us, it calls us to believe this and to trust in it.

And so, it is not the sinless who are worthy to come to the Lord’s Supper, and to feast on these gifts. It is those who know their sin, and want to change their lives, and lead a completely new one. If we are honest, we realise that our old self is always a complete disappointment, and we are always failing to lead the Christian life we know we should. And so, we come to Jesus, with everything that is on our hearts and our minds, with all our failures and all our griefs and sorrows, and we place them all into his hands. And he gives us his body and blood to eat and to drink, given for you, and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is his last will and testament, he reads it allowed to you his family, and he gives you your inheritance right into your mouths. If only we could understand what a precious gift this is! As we often say in our service: May he strengthen you with his Sacrament that your joy may be full! Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful gift of the holy supper of your body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. Help us to treasure this wonderful gift which you have given to your church on earth, as we sing and praise your name together with the angels, the archangels and with all the company of heaven. Amen.