4 May 2025 - Easter 3 - John 10:22-30

On Good Shepherd Sunday, we are reminded that Jesus is indeed our “Good Shepherd,” and that we are his sheep. Since we are his sheep, he watches over us and protects us. He leads us to green pastures and still waters. He guides us to places of peace and safety.

These “pastoral” images do apply to the relationship that we have with him, because the analogy of sheep and their shepherd is a fitting picture of the spiritual relationship that Christians have with their divine Redeemer, Savior, and Teacher. But for this analogy to work, and to be a good picture of our relationship with Jesus, we need to see ourselves as his sheep, and we need to act like his sheep.

Literal sheep are dependent on their shepherd. They have little if any sense of the danger that is at hand when a predator is near. If they are in danger, they will not realize it, and will just stand there, until and unless their shepherd calls and leads them to safety.

They are also not very adept at foraging for food, as other animals are. If they are hungry, in a place where there is nothing to eat, they will likely stay in that place, and stay hungry, until and unless their shepherd calls and leads them to a place where they can be fed and nourished.

Literal sheep will not follow just anyone, however, even if it is to safety, or to food. They will listen to and follow the one whom they trust, and with whom they have a relationship.

Each individual sheep in a particular flock has this kind of personal relationship with the shepherd. They function as a flock - as a group of sheep - only because each of them is following the same voice, and is being led by the same protector and guide.

In the Smalcald Articles, the Lutheran Church confesses: “Thank God, a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd.”

Do we all know what a seven-year-old child knows? Do each of you, individually, hear the Shepherd’s voice?

That’s what is supposed to be happening, as each of us believes in the saving grace of Christ, and in the authority of Christ. That’s what it is supposed to be like for us as disciples of Jesus, who have been mystically united to him in Baptism, and who are being taught to observe all that he has commanded.

But is this actually an accurate description of our life of faith? Are we like sheep? Or are we instead like some other kind of creature in the animal kingdom?

Lemmings are interesting little animals. They are not like sheep. In their migratory patterns, Lemmings are crowd-followers.

There is no particular individual leader whom they follow, but at a certain point, when a group of lemmings senses intuitively that it is time for a migration, they all just collectively start running away from where they had been living.

And the more they run, the more of an inner compulsion they have to continue to run in whatever direction they are going. If the trajectory they are on takes them to a river or a lake, they run into the river or lake, swim across it, and resume running once they get to the other side.

If the trajectory they are on takes them to a cliff, it has been reported that they will run off the cliff: sometimes falling to their deaths, and sometimes falling into the ocean - if it’s a shoreline cliff. When that happens, if they survive the drop into the ocean, they swim in the same direction they had been going before, out to sea, where they might drown - if they do not find land before they get exhausted from their swimming.

Lemmings have no lemming herder, who would try to direct them away from hazards and mortal danger as they migrate. And even if there were such a thing as a lemming herder, lemmings would not listen to him or follow his lead. That is because lemmings are lemmings. Lemmings are not sheep.

In your spiritual life, and in your religious beliefs, are you a lemming? Are you following a crowd? Or are you following the voice of your divine Shepherd? In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus says:

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Are you hearing, and paying attention to, the voice of Christ - as that voice echoes from Holy Scripture? Is that why you are here? In your soul and conscience, are you following Jesus?

Or are you here because your family or friends are here, and you have - as it were - followed them, and have come along with them, without giving a whole lot of deep thought to why you are here?

God very often does use relatives and friends as his instruments in bringing us into a relationship with him. God is providentially at work for our spiritual benefit when our parents bring us to the font of Baptism, and raise us in the faith.

God is providentially at work for our spiritual benefit when a spouse or future spouse introduces us to the life of the church. God is providentially at work for our spiritual benefit when friends invite us to worship with them.

God can and does use these kinds of human relationships as external means whereby he exposes us to the means of grace. God thereby positions us to be in a place where his Word can come into contact with us and enter us: so that we can then be convicted of our sin and be driven to repentance; and so that we can then be called to faith and be given the new birth of the Spirit.

But being a part of a family or a circle of friends that goes to church, is not in itself more than the equivalent of being a part of a herd of lemmings, until and unless we do in fact hear and listen to the voice of our Shepherd - our own Shepherd - who personally loves us and claims us as his own sheep.

When you hear his voice - not only in your ears, but also in your conscience - and when you know, deep down, that he died to atone for your sins, you would follow him even if none of your relatives or friends believed in him, or joined you on that pathway. That’s the kind of personal and trusting faith that the Holy Spirit creates in the heart of each person who clings in this way to the promises of Christ.

It is in regard to each of these sheep of Christ’s flock - who believe in him for themselves, and do not rely on the faith of others - that Christ the Good Shepherd also says:

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

That you believe in God’s Son, is a consequence of your hearing his voice for yourself, and being drawn to him in your heart and soul by the working of his Spirit within you. A true saving faith does not arise as a byproduct of a religious “lemming effect,” based only on who the crowd wants to believe in.

What you believe about God’s Son - and about yourself as a Christian - is also a consequence of your hearing his voice for yourself, and being drawn to him in your own mind and spirit. A personal commitment to the truth of God’s Word does not arise as a byproduct of group dynamics, based only on what the crowd is willing to believe.

The Christian way of looking at the world, and measuring reality, is shaped by the fourfold message that Scripture reveals to us about humanity’s “big story”: as that story focuses on creation, the fall, redemption, and restoration. The full Biblical content of each of these focal points of the Christian worldview is under direct attack today.

The crowds that surround us are in many cases no longer willing to believe in God’s special creation of the heavens and the earth in general, and of our first human parents in particular.

The crowds believe instead that all life, including human life, evolved from nothing for no purpose, through random mutations and undirected chance events. Will you follow the lemmings over this cliff, or will you, as a sheep, listen to the voice of your Shepherd?

The crowds that surround us are in many cases no longer willing to believe that all members of the human race, who descend from Adam and Eve, are conceived in a state of sinful alienation from God, and with a condition of inner spiritual and moral corruption.

The crowds believe instead that all people are innately good, so that any urge, impulse, inclination, or orientation that feels natural to someone, is natural and good, and not to be criticized. Will you follow the lemmings over this cliff, or will you, as a sheep, listen to the voice of your Shepherd?

The crowds that surround us are in many cases no longer willing to believe that God’s righteous wrath against human sin has been propitiated and turned away by the substitutionary death of his only-begotten Son, so that it is through Christ alone that God is reconciled to his fallen creation.

The crowds believe instead that if God does exist, he is an indulgent God without holiness or wrath, who judges nothing and condemns no one. Will you follow the lemmings over this cliff, or will you, as a sheep, listen to the voice of your Shepherd?

The crowds that surround us are in many cases no longer willing to believe that it is only in the Word and Sacraments that Christ left for his church, that the Spirit of Christ converts hearts, bestows faith, and offers and seals to believers the forgiveness and eternal life that our crucified and risen Savior earned for the human race.

The crowds believe instead that each individual needs to find his own pathway to God, and that all pathways to the divine are equally valid. Will you follow the lemmings over this cliff, or will you, as a sheep, listen to the voice of your Shepherd?

Might we need to hear the rebuke that St. Paul gave to the Galatians?:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.”

So far St. Paul.

The sheep of the Lord, who hear his voice, are to be found in all nations. In the history of Christian missions, whenever the gospel of Jesus Christ entered a new nation, a new country, or a new community for the first time, the first believers were willing to forsake the paganism and the idolatry that everyone else still believed in.

Through the preaching of the missionaries, they had heard their true Shepherd’s voice. Jesus’ words had reached into their souls - as he called them to faith and discipleship - and touched them very deeply, and very personally.

As regenerated lambs of the Lord, each one of them became willing to break away from the crowd, and to renounce the ancestral religion of their family, in order to follow Jesus, and to become a part of his flock.

This is still happening in the mission fields of the world. This is still happening in our own land, which is in many ways a new mission field once again.

There are no doubt many people in our neighborhoods and in our community who are not only not Christians themselves, but who have no relatives or friends who are Christians. If they were to listen to the voice of Jesus, and follow him, they would - in regard to their new faith and its implications - be breaking away from everyone they know, and from all that is familiar to them.

But this is what God calls them to. And God calls each of us also to be his instrument and servant - his representative and his mouthpiece - through whom the Good Shepherd reaches out to them, and draws them to himself.

Even if none of their relatives and friends come, God wants them to come - and so do we. Jesus welcomes them to his flock - and so do we.

And so, don’t be afraid to tell unbelievers or adherents of a false religion about Jesus, or to share the forgiving and life-giving words of Jesus with them. Let them hear the voice of their Shepherd, through you.

And for the sake of your own soul, your own standing with God, and your own eternal destiny, never stop listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd yourself.

When Jesus warns you about your misspoken words and your misguided actions, about the manipulations of the devil and the deceptions of the world, in repentance accept his warning, and in humility follow him as he leads you away from danger.

And when Jesus leads you toward the sweet spiritual nourishment of his justifying promises and of his eucharistic banquet; when he speaks his absolving words of comfort and joy into your heart, and enlightens your mind and will with his saving truth: follow him then, too. Follow him wherever he goes.

Follow him even if your friends and relatives do not follow. Follow him and trust him, for he knows you better than you know yourself. And he loves you more than you can ever imagine.

The testimony that is borne of the Lord’s elect in the Book of Revelation, will be the testimony that is borne of us, who have heard the Shepherd’s voice, and have followed our Shepherd into eternity:

“They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.”

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

O God, let us hear when our Shepherd shall call In accents persuasive and tender,
That while there is time we make haste, one and all, And find Him, our mighty Defender.
Have mercy upon us, O Jesus! Amen.

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11 May 2025 - Easter 4 - Hebrews 12:1-3

After describing the struggles, the triumphs, and especially the enduring faith of many saints of God from the days of the Old Testament, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, at the beginning of chapter 12 of that epistle, gives us this encouragement:

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

So far our text.

The ancient Greeks used to compete with each other in running races and athletic contests, in honor of the gods whom they thought lived on Mount Olympus. This is where the modern term “Olympics” comes from.

When the Romans came on the scene as the dominant political power in the Mediterranean world, and absorbed the Greeks into their new empire, they picked up on this Greek athletic tradition, and perpetuated it.

These kinds of competitions - which were common in the Roman world - were the inspiration for the racing analogy that today’s text from the Epistle to the Hebrews presents to us, as an illustration of the meaning and character of Christian faith.

We usually think of faith as something passive. In relation to God and his Word, faith doesn’t really do anything, but it trusts in what God does for our salvation.

In this sense faith simply receives what God offers, as our soul rests in God’s grace, and is reconciled to God through the mediation of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. As St. Paul writes in the Epistle to the Romans,

“To the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”

This is all true. But this does not exhaust all the Biblical imagery regarding faith, and what faith is like. The Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz observes that

“There is the further question concerning the exercises of faith under the cross, in obedience, in prayer, and the expectation of bodily and spiritual blessings, when the person is reconciled by faith. In regard to this question the Epistle to the Hebrews discusses how faith, after justification, exercises itself through suffering, and receives various gifts and benefits.”

That’s what the text from Hebrews is talking about when it compares faith - and the exercise of faith in the life of a Christian - to the running of a race. In this sense, faith is active, always in motion, always striving toward its object and goal.

In faith we actively reach out to Christ, and actively grasp him. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,” we are told.

And just as the Epistle to the Hebrews exposes us here to another aspect of the Biblical doctrine of faith, so too does it also expose us to another aspect of the Biblical doctrine of sin. We are given this admonition:

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us...”

Usually we think of sin in terms of humanity’s inner corruption, which inclines us away from God; and in terms of humanity’s rebellion against God and his law, which invites God’s wrath and judgment.

Again, this is all true. But this also does not exhaust all the Biblical imagery regarding sin and how sin hurts us.

Sin paralyzes us spiritually. It is like a ball and chain that weigh us down and bind us up, making us spiritually immobile.

It is that aspect of sin that the Epistle to the Hebrews is addressing when it calls upon us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,” so that we can run the race of faith.

In a literal race, a smart runner will take off anything he doesn’t absolutely need to be wearing before he begins his race. I’ve heard of racers shaving down the rubber on the side of the soles of their running shoes, to minimize the weight.

Runners will also make sure that their clothing is not clingy or restrictive. They will wear only as much as they need to, and none of it will be tight-fitting. Everything that would limit the movement of their arms or legs in any way, is laid aside.

That’s the way it has to be with us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith, if they are real, always go together. If a desire to embrace the forgiver of sins is genuine, it will be accompanied by a corresponding desire to lay aside the sin, which would prevent us from being able to run the race of faith if it were not laid aside.

You cannot run the race of faith if you have not, in repentance, “laid aside” all deliberate, evil intentions, and turned away from all intentional, wicked actions. If these remain with you, and on you, they will weigh you down, and prevent you from moving in God’s direction.

You cannot run the race of faith if your mind is bound up with a straightjacket of greed or lust, or if your soul is hobbled with the restraints of hatred or pride. If you willfully cling to your sins, and allow them to cling to you, you cannot at the same time cling to Christ.

The kind of repentance that God demands is not simply a matter of saying you are sorry. It is a matter of being sorry - for what you have done that you should not have done, and for what you have not done that you should have done.

And, if you are sorry for your sins, you will hate your sins. And with the Lord’s help, and in his strength, you will want to lay them aside, and to cast them as far away from you as possible. Therefore,

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Jesus is here called the “founder and finisher of our faith.” But the Greek term that is rendered by our version as “founder” might better be rendered as “beginner.”

A variant of that Greek term also appears in John chapter 1, where we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

And so, in the context of his racing analogy, Jesus is described by the writer of Hebrews as the beginner and finisher of the race that is our faith.

This race of faith is, as it were, taking place on an oval track, or on a circular course, where the start line, and the finish line, are the same line. In a literal race on such a track or course, the runners set out on their race at the same location where they eventually end up.

And in our Christian faith it’s very similar to this. Jesus is the one who gets us started in our life of faith, and he is also the goal toward which our faith is pressing.

Unlike the start and finish line on a literal race track, however, Jesus is not just an inanimate scratch in the dirt, or a splash of paint on the pavement. Instead, he is very much alive, and is the giver of the spiritual life that both pushes and pulls us forward in our life of faith.

At the beginning of our race, in our baptism, Jesus launches us out into a life of trusting discipleship. And from the finish line, in his resurrected glory, Jesus beckons and draws us in hope, to everlasting life.

And along the way, as we are going around the track or the course of our race of faith, whenever we falter, or stumble, or start to feel worn out - wondering if we will finish the race - Jesus rejuvenates us by his word of gracious pardon, and refreshes us by the divine sustenance of his Holy Supper.

You and I cannot even begin to run this race in our own strength, by virtue of our own human religiosity, let alone to finish it by our own spiritual power. But Jesus has made it possible for us to have faith, and to be saved by faith.

For the joy of the resurrection that was set before him - in the race of redemption that he ran for us - Christ endured the shameful death of the cross. Our sins needed to be atoned for by a perfect divine-human Savior.

Only Jesus could accomplish this for us. And in love for the whole human race, Jesus did accomplish this. But that was not the end of his race. The resurrection was the end. The resurrection was the victory.

And now, as the crucified and risen Savior, Jesus continually puts us in training for our race: with the healthy spiritual diet of his means of grace, and with the regular discipline of exercising our faith in prayer.

Jesus bestows upon us his limitless grace and forgiveness: whenever we do slip from the track into sin, and call out to him in humility for the healing and help that only he can give.

And he, as it were, injects into each of us, by his Word and Spirit, all the supernatural strength we need to run this race: to stay on our feet, to press forward, to persevere without giving up. All of that comes from Jesus.

In St. John’s Gospel he says, “without Me you can do nothing.” In St. Matthew’s Gospel he also says, “With God all things are possible.”

With Christ sustaining us every step of the way, we are able to do what we would otherwise never be able to do. We repent of our sins and believe his gospel. Every day, we repent and believe.

And we live in that faith, as we run the race that has been set before us: energized by the grace of our baptism into Christ, and encouraged onward by the promise of the resurrection victory that will be ours, through the victory over sin and death that Jesus has already won for all his saints.

Today’s confirmand Norah has been running her race of faith since the day of her baptism. But in her confirmation, as she confesses publicly her faith in Christ, she is turning an important corner on the track on which she has been running.

And today, in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, she will begin to receive an extraordinarily potent source of energy that Jesus gives her, to strengthen her for endurance and persistence in the race she is running.

Norah does not think - and no one should ever think - that confirmation and first communion are the end of something. They are not the finish line. They are a rejuvenation that points us to the future, and are a new beginning in our relationship with Christ and with his church.

Those who are in these ways renewed in their faith, look forward in faith to a lifetime of running, and of believing. Norah, today, is looking forward in faith, to a lifetime of running, and of believing.

We close with one of the most uplifting passages in all of Scripture, from today’s appointed lesson from the Prophet Isaiah, which seems especially fitting for what we have been considering:

“The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Amen.

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18 May 2025 - Easter 5 - Psalm 98

The traditional Latin name for this Sunday of the church year is “Cantate.” It means “Sing,” and is taken from Psalm 98, which for many centuries has been associated with this Sunday.

We chanted a portion of this Psalm a few minutes ago. But it would be beneficial for us to consider the lines that we sang in the light of their broader context, in Psalm 98 as a whole.

There is a segment of people in the wider Christian church that is always seeking after innovation. People who think in this way have little regard for inherited traditions or familiar customs: in church music, and in other areas of church life as well. Everything always needs to be new and different.

And those who approach their faith and worship in this way often quote from the first line of Psalm 98, which they consider to be an endorsement of continual change and modification in the worship of the church:

“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!”

Yet as we look at the lines which follow this exhortation to sing a new song to the Lord, we see that the motivation to do so is not to be found in an unsettled human craving for constant innovation, but in the marvelous works that the Lord has accomplished for human salvation.

One of the ways in which the terms “old” and “new” are used in the Christian world, is in how the apostolic Greek Scriptures are differentiated from the Hebrew Scriptures of the ancient nation of Israel. In this context - which is a biblical context - the “new testament” is now about 2,000 years old.

The sacrament that Jesus instituted for his church, which he described in part as the new testament in his blood, has been going on, unchanged, for 2,000 years. So, “new” and “old” are relative terms - especially when viewed from God’s eternal perspective!

In Psalm 98, right after the Psalmist exhorts us to sing to the Lord a new song, he tells us why we should do so:

“For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory. The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

This recounting of the Lord’s saving works certainly does have a prophetic “feel” to it, because it is describing things that happened, in the fullest and deepest sense, only when Christ came into the world, and commissioned his church to bring his saving gospel to all nations.

This gospel declares to all who hear it - in all nations of the earth - that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sins of the world, and then rose in victory over sin and death on the third day.

This gospel also declares to all who hear it and believe it, that the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed and credited to their faith, makes them fully acceptable to God; and causes them to be a part of God’s new, holy people, comprised now of both Jews and Gentiles.

Through the Prophet Ezekiel - as God speaks of the messianic age, and of the baptismal blessings that he will bestow upon his people in that age - he tells us:

“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you... I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.”

From within the new spirit that we now have, through the working of God’s Spirit within us, we do indeed sing a new song: because the Savior whom we now know, and who now knows us, makes all things new for us.

Psalm 98 continues:

“Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of a psalm, with trumpets and the sound of a horn; shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.”

As we sing and even shout our praises and thanksgivings to God, we employ musical instruments. In history the followers of Zwingli and the Puritans prohibited the use of instruments in church, and today a group called the Churches of Christ likewise prohibits instruments.

Because the New Testament does not command harps and trumpets, they think that the New Testament prohibits harps and trumpets. But what Psalm 98 declares, it declares across the centuries, and across the earth.

Obviously we don’t want instruments in church that simply make noise, and that distract us from the message of the psalms and hymns that we sing. But the new song of the New Testament is to be sung with harps and trumpets, and with any other appropriate instrument that can serve a sacred text by carrying it into the minds and hearts of worshipers.

Our culture in general used to be a singing culture. Families would gather in the living room or in the parlor, sometimes around a piano or a violin that one of the members of the family could play, and they would sing songs: folk songs, and religious songs.

Men who congregated in the community tavern would sing drinking songs. And when people went to church, they would sing hymns. Especially in the worship of God by his grateful children would the joy of song find its proper and most natural place.

The Christian faith has always been characterized by singing, even as the angels sing their endless songs to the Lord Jehovah in heaven. With the use of some distinctive terminology to describe the angels, the Book of Job tells us that when God created the world,

“The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

But today, what one often sees is that the members of a family seldom gather together in the same place at the same time - for singing or for anything else. Instead, the individual members of a family each listen to recordings of their own generational music over the radio or on their devices.

When people gather in bars nowadays, their eyes are often glued to a TV, or even to several TVs, showing a football game, a baseball game, or some other sports competition. There is no singing.

And those who do still go to church - which is an ever decreasing percentage of the population - now often go to churches that are performance-oriented, where they watch and listen to a praise band perform for them. They hardly ever sing themselves.

I’ve noticed over the past couple years, at funerals, that many if not most of the non-members in attendance don’t join in with the singing. They don’t even open the hymnal. It’s as if they don’t know how to sing any more.

This is a very sad thing. And it is especially sad, because at a deeper level it may very well mean that they are not singing - and probably not believing - the new song of salvation from sin, death, and the devil that the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ puts into the hearts, and onto the lips, of his people.

Indeed, this message of salvation is like a song, even when it is not literally going forth in the form of a song. It is like a song because it is filled with a depth of feeling in the way a good song is, and draws our whole being into itself in the way a good song does.

And as we proclaim and sing out in various ways our confession of Christ, every day of our lives, we are accompanied and supported by various instruments, not just literal musical instruments, but also the instruments of our vocation: by which our love for God is manifested in love for the neighbor, as we serve him with earthly tools and earthly goods in this earthly life.

Psalm 98 continues:

“Let the sea roar, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world, and the peoples with equity.”

God is the maker of this physical world. But the earth was cursed because of human sin, so that it would bring forth to Adam and his descendants - after his fall, and after our fall in Adam - thorns and thistles.

Yet as St. Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Romans, “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God,” even as we will be delivered from temporal and eternal death - by the grace of our heavenly Father in his Son - in the resurrection on the last day, for the final judgment.

The Lord tells us through Isaiah the Prophet:

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create.”

And so we, and the earth that we inhabit, now sing a new song also of this wonder that God will someday bring forth - as the Holy Spirit instills within us a hope-filled certainty that God will keep his promises.

Because Jesus has forgiven our sins, has covered our imperfections with his perfect righteousness, and has made us to be his new creation - and a new people who serve him in faith - we do not fear the judgment that is to come. We know that he will vindicate us, and all who have suffered for his name’s sake.

And so we join in the joyous song of all creation that celebrates the goodness, the love, and the faithfulness of our Triune God.

God does warn us and correct us when we sin. Our Father in heaven chastises those whom he loves, as does a good earthly father with respect to his misbehaving children. But the repentance that God’s law works in us whenever it is needed, always leads us to faith and to the forgiveness that faith receives.

God’s words of warning are serious, and must be taken seriously. But for us who know Christ, his words of warning are never his last words to us. His words of pardon and peace are his last words, and his eternally enduring words.

These are the words by which we remember him, as he continually fills us with the remembrance of all that Jesus has done to redeem us: in the special sacrament of remembrance through which Jesus comes to us again and again, and in his gospel in general as it is preached to us again and again.

And so we step out of Psalm 98, into Psalm 30, for the words with which we conclude:

“Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. ...”

“I cried out to You, O Lord; and to the Lord I made supplication: ... ‘Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper!’ You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness: to the end that my glory may sing praise to You, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” Amen.

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25 May 2025 - Easter 6 - John 16:23-33

Over the past several years, the phenomenon of Harry Potter has captured the imagination of a large number of America’s children. And I suppose not just children.

Harry and his friends are likeable, up-and-coming sorcerers. As such, they always try to come up with the proper magical incantation for any situation, by which they seek to take control of that situation and bring about a positive outcome.

Over the years, some Christian parents have been concerned about the popularity of Harry Potter. They have feared that these books and movies might be creating in their children an unhealthy interest in the occult or in witchcraft, while sugar-coating the truly dark and demonic character of sorcery.

Others point out, however, that our popular culture is filled with children’s stories that involve spell-casting, such as Cindarella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the Wizard of Oz. But these have not created an undue interest in sorcery among our children.

Apart from the question of whether such fictional stories are spiritually dangerous or not, we can say that it is contrary to the Christian religion to believe that these kinds of incantations are available to us, and might be used by us: allowing us to have power over our circumstances, and to change our circumstances according to our wishes.

But what are we to think of the promises that Jesus makes in today’s Gospel from St. John? Is Jesus perhaps giving us a Christian “incantation” that we can use to get the things we want when we pray? He says:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. ... Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

It almost seems as if the Lord is telling us that if we say the phrase “in the name of Jesus,” or something like that, when we request something in prayer, then we will be sure to get it.

Yet we are warned away from such an interpretation by our Small Catechism. It reminds us, in its explanation of the Second Commandment, that

“We should fear and love God, so that we do not...practice witchcraft...by His name, but call upon Him in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.”

This is not a warning against flagrant Satanism, or the Wiccan religion, which are already covered by the prohibitions of the First Commandment. It is, rather, a warning against using the name of God - and that includes the name of Jesus Christ - in a magical, manipulative way.

In summary, we don’t automatically get what we want just by saying the phrase “in the name of Jesus” when we pray, as if this phrase were an incantation.

If God does not already want us to have something, we cannot make him give it to us by throwing a certain set of words at him. That’s not the way of true faith, and that’s not the way of true prayer.

In fact, Jesus warns us that when his name is placed upon us in our baptism, and when we accordingly pray in this name and confess this name before others, things will probably go worse for us in this life than what would be the case if we had never become Christians. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ... If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. ... But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”

So, having and using the name of Jesus is not a formula for success and prosperity in this sinful world. It is, instead, a formula for putting yourself on the receiving end of this sinful world’s hatred and persecution. As Jesus tells his disciples in today’s text:

“In the world you will have tribulation.”

But we are often unwilling to bear patiently the trials that are laid upon us in this world. We would prefer a religion that “works” for us, and that brings us happiness and success - as the world would measure those things.

So we often act and speak as if we think that God owes us comfort, health, and fair earthly outcomes. When we don’t experience these things, then we doubt God, and wonder why he is afflicting us with whatever it is we are facing.

I suppose the fact that we so quickly and presumptuously complain about such trials - when we do pass through them - is evidence of the weakness and immaturity of our faith; and is evidence of our need for these chastisements precisely so that our faith might be refined and refocused through the purifying effect of those trials.

But at other times, too, God strengthens our faith by allowing difficult circumstances to come into our life - and by not removing those circumstances even when we ask him to. This prompts us to exercise our faith, and it deepens our trust in him and in his goodness, as we call out to God for help in the midst of those circumstances.

In a letter that he wrote while his wife was fighting a losing battle with cancer, C. S. Lewis spoke for many of us as we face grief and anguish in this life:

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us. We are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Thomas a Kempis, the well-known Medieval devotional writer, offers some observations that are just as pertinent to our time as they were to his own. He writes:

“Jesus has many lovers of His kingdom of heaven, but He has few bearers of His cross. Many desire His consolation, but few desire His tribulation. He finds many fellows at eating and drinking, but finds few that will be with Him in His abstinence and fasting. All men would rejoice with Him, but few would suffer anything for Christ. Many follow Him to the breaking of His bread for their bodily refection, but few will follow Him to drink a draft of the chalice of His Passion. Many marvel and honor His miracles, but few will follow the shame of His cross.”

Asking God the Father for things “in the name of Jesus” is not a formula for getting what we want. It is not an incantation that we can repeat, in order to be able to eat, drink, and be merry in this life, courtesy of God.

But if these interpretations of what it means to pray in this name are wrong, what is the correct interpretation?

Well, according to the Biblical understanding of the word “name,” a “name” refers to a lot more than just the term that we use to call out to someone, or to differentiate one person from another. Rather, according to the Scriptural view, an individual’s “name” involves and includes everything by which that individual makes himself known and identifies himself to others.

The name of Jesus, then, is everything about him that he has made known to us in his Word, and that he has impressed upon our minds and hearts through his gospel and sacraments. When we believe in his “name,” therefore, we are believing in him, and in all the promises he has made to us concerning our salvation. That’s why St. John says:

“To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

And in explaining to his readers why he had included in his Gospel the things that he did include, John also says this:

“But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

When you have the name of Jesus, you have Jesus himself and all his blessings. When you believe in the name of Jesus, you believe in his whole gospel, and are a child of God through that faith.

There is no magic formula or incantation that we can recite when we pray, in order to get what we want. But there is a name - a divine, holy, righteous, and forgiving name - which changes our standing before God when it is placed upon us; and which changes our hearts and the desires of our heart, our minds and the thoughts of our mind, when it is planted within us.

When the name of Christ is proclaimed to us, the righteousness of Christ is credited to us, to cover over the stain of our sins. And as we receive this gracious proclamation in faith, we thereby also receive the right and privilege to approach God in prayer.

Primarily we pray with open hands, to receive what God gives - whatever that might be. But God also invites us humbly to lay our petitions before him. What will be the content of those petitions?

As we grow in our faith, the maturity of our life of prayer also grows. As the name of Jesus imbeds itself ever more deeply into our conscience, we think less and less about what we want, and we think more and more about what God wants us to have, for our true and lasting good.

That’s why prayers that are offered in the name of Jesus are accompanied by a pledge from our Savior that they will be heard and granted.

A prayer motivated by greed, selfishness, or a love of luxury is not a prayer that is spoken in the name of Jesus, regardless of the formulation that might be tacked on at the end of the prayer. Such a prayer has no guarantee of success.

In fact, the only thing we can be sure of regarding such a prayer, is that God is not pleased with it, and may in fact chastise us for it.

But a prayer that is genuinely offered in the name of Jesus, is a prayer that is offered from within the Christ-centered faith that God’s Spirit gives us. It is a prayer that is offered from within the saving relationship that Christ has established with us.

A prayer that is offered in the name of Jesus is a prayer that is shaped and molded by the Word of Jesus. It is a prayer that is brought to life within us by the new birth of our baptism. It is a prayer that is nourished within us by the heavenly food of the Lord’s body and blood.

As Jesus warns, in this world we will have tribulation. Sometimes a lot, and sometimes a little, but tribulation in some measure there will always be.

And this tribulation will come in various forms and from different directions: through outward attacks and set-backs, and through inner struggles and temptations. In one form or another, tribulation will always be a part of life in this world. We cannot pray it away.

But listen to what Jesus also says in the context of his remarks about the inevitability of tribulation:

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

When in the midst of tribulation you pray in the name of Jesus for the peace that the world cannot give - the peace of a conscience that has been fully and completely forgiven by Christ - God the Father will grant that prayer!

When in the midst of tribulation you pray in the name of Jesus that God’s Spirit would draw you ever closer to your Savior in a deep, mystical union with him, God the Father will grant that prayer!

When in the midst of tribulation you pray in the name of Jesus for the assurance of your ultimate victory over sin and death through the power of Christ’s resurrection - by which he has indeed overcome the world and all its dark forces - God the Father will grant that prayer! Jesus says:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. ... Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Praying in a manner that is more like a demand on God, than like a humble submission to God; and speaking the name of Jesus as an incantation rather than as a confession of faith, do not result in joy.

But praying in God’s way with God’s words - on the basis of God’s revelation of what we truly need, and on the basis of God’s promises of what he wants to give us - does bring joy. Prayer that is offered from within our faith in Christ’s sacred name brings true joy, even in the midst of suffering and sadness.

And God’s faithful answering of such prayers, according to his loving will, renews confidence in God, even in the midst of doubts and fears.

God’s answers to such prayers, as his Word reveals those answers, bring satisfaction with God’s provision, and contentment under God’s protection: even when the world, the flesh, and the devil would want to draw us away from the blessings of the gospel and of faith, into dissatisfaction with God, and toward a denial of God.

What we learn about prayer also from Psalm 55, is a lesson we should apply whenever we offer our petitions to the Lord. Let us listen to what this Psalm tells us, as the conclusion of this message about prayer in the name of Jesus:

“My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me. But I call to God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” Amen.

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29 May 2025 - Ascension Day

There are great benefits to using our wonderful Lutheran chorales in worship. They do not entertain us, and are not intended to entertain us. But, they do edify us, and build us up spiritually.

The classic chorales are of a high devotional quality, in view of their Christ-centered biblical content, and their good literary form. And they also serve a catechetical function: as they teach us the faith in a positive way, while also warning us away from errors that would weaken or damage our faith and our relationship with God.

The communion hymn that we will sing in conjunction with the administration of the Lord’s Supper this evening is a good example of such a chorale. Samuel Kinner, who wrote this hymn in the seventeenth century, was a German Lutheran layman - a physician. Harry Bartels, who translated it into English, was a pastoral colleague and a friend.

Let’s take a look at a few verses from this chorale, which is a devout and grateful prayer to Jesus. Let us consider how our faith is being shaped, and what we are being taught from God’s Word, in those verses.

There is a connection to the festival of the Ascension of Our Lord, which we are observing today, in verse 2. We pray there to Christ:

Though visibly from earth You’ve gone, Already now ascended,
And here to us remain unseen Till this brief time is ended,
Until the Judgment shall begin When we will stand before Your throne
And joyfully behold You.

The ascension of Jesus did indeed remove him from the physical sight of his disciples. And we cannot see him with our eyes, either. But someday, he will visibly return to the earth. St. Luke, in the Book of Acts, tells us that while the disciples watched,

“He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

The society in which we live is filled with skeptics, who won’t believe in anything that they haven’t experienced with their bodily senses. Sadly, this cuts them off, in their deluded minds, from many supernatural truths relating to God: not only his warnings and blessings, and his abiding presence among his people, but sometimes even his very existence.

What the Christian church teaches about God, about Jesus, and about the Holy Spirit, seems to them to be just so much irrelevant nonsense, which has no bearing on real life. But this attitude also often sets these people up for demonic deceptions.

A lot of the experiences that are brought about in someone’s life through occult activity are seen to be very real. And so, while they turn away from the church and its worship, they latch onto the claims of mediums, fortune tellers, and Wiccan spell-casters.

They can see some practical consequences of what occult practitioners do, and so they believe in this: even though they are completely lacking in discernment of exactly what it is that they are seeing, and of where it comes from.

But, they can’t see Jesus. So they don’t believe in Jesus.

The Christian religion is growing in Africa, however. This is true of various churches: including Lutheran, Anglican, and Catholic.

Observers have noted that one of the distinctive features of the church in Africa - which seems to represent a large part of the reason for its strength and vibrancy - is that the Christians there have a very strong belief in the supernatural, and a strong orientation toward the supernatural world.

They are willing to believe in things that they cannot see with their physical eyes, and they are willing to be deeply devoted to those things, because of the power of God’s Word and sacraments in their lives. Again, I’m talking about Lutherans, Catholics, and Anglicans, who are adherents of sacramental and liturgical confessions.

The out-of-control emotions of the Pentecostals and charismatics do not feed and nurture a genuine faith. But the supernatural, faith-building potency of the Lord’s Supper - when the body and blood of Christ come into contact with a Christian’s physical body, and with his believing soul - leaves no doubt about the reality of an invisible yet truly present Savior, and about the reality of the forgiveness that he brings and delivers.

And that leads us to verses 3 and 4 of the hymn:

Still You are here, as says Your Word, With us, Your congregation,
With now Your flesh and bones, O Lord, Not bound to one location.
Your Word stands as a tower sure, None can o’erthrow its truth secure,
Be he most shrewd and subtle.

“This is My body,” thus You say, “Eat orally, so take Me;
All drink My blood; by you I stay, And you shall not forsake Me.”
Thus You have spoken, so ’tis true; Naught is impossible with You,
For You, Lord, are almighty.

The meaning of the ascension of Jesus - when viewed through the lense of the mystery of the incarnation - is not that Jesus is now nowhere, as far as his presence in this world is concerned. It is that Jesus is now everywhere: in this world and far beyond.

In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul did not teach that the ascended Lord is now present in just one physical, circumscribed location somewhere in heaven. Rather, he writes that Christ “ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.”

During his time on earth, the powers and abilities of Jesus’ divine nature were usually hidden. He lived most of the time according to the limitations of his human nature, in the form of a servant, even to the point of suffering and dying to atone for our sins.

Yet even when he was in this state of humiliation, Jesus did occasionally do extraordinary things that he was able to do only because he was the almighty God in human flesh. One of those things was his institution of the Lord’s Supper.

On that night, his body - with his blood coursing through it - was visibly seated at the table. But his body and blood were also, at the same time, invisibly present in the bread and wine that he was offering his disciples.

When Jesus says that something is so, then it is so. When Jesus says that he is with us always, even to the end of the age, then he is with us.

When the ascended Lord says at our altar - and at a million other altars all around the world - that the consecrated bread is his true body, and that the blessed wine is his true blood, then that is what is there: at our altar, and at a million other altars, all at the same time.

The power of Christ’s Words of Institution penetrates the darkness of our doubt, and brings the light of faith and hope. Jesus’ supernaturally potent Words draw us into an ever-deeper union with him, as they mystically lift us up to where he is in his ascended glory.

Paul explains this profound truth in his Epistle to the Ephesians:

“God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ..., and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

And the life-filled Words of Christ also draw us into a more compassionate mutual love for one another.

The presence of Jesus - for us, with us, and in us - is so much more real to us than the perishable things of this earth that our hands are able to touch. The creator of our five physical senses is higher and greater than our five physical senses.

Yet our belief in that creator - and that redeemer - is not just something we spin out of our imagination without any evidence. Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians that the Word of God he was sent and authorized to preach concerns

“the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery...: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

We may not be able to see Jesus with our physical eyes. We do, however, see the sins that remain in our life, on account of which we need Jesus.

Those sins are very real. They trouble us and alarm us - or at least they should. In the prayer of confession that we used this evening, we humbly called out to God:

“Throughout life we have often and in many ways offended You, our Lord and Maker, in thought, word, and deed; so that You could with perfect justice reject and condemn us for all eternity. Therefore we come before You with sorrow of heart, in dread and terror of Your holy justice and of everlasting death.”

As the sins are real, so too is such a prayer of repentance also very real. But neither the sins nor the prayer are more real than the Savior who hears that prayer; and who forgives the sins, cleanses us of them, and covers us with his righteousness in their place.

The absolution that Christ speaks through his called servant is like the first coat of a bright white paint that covers over the old blackness of our transgressions. And the Lord’s Supper is then like the second coat of that white paint.

Jesus - from the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from within the means of grace in his church - continues to layer his pardon upon us, throughout all our days: reconciling us to the God whose holiness we have offended; and energizing us for a life of righteousness and good works as the Spirit-wrought fruits of our repentance.

Christ does all this, and through all this fills us with heavenly joy, until our time on earth is over. Then the heavenly joy of faith and hope in this world will be translated into the higher joy of heaven itself, where we will await the final resurrection and the eternal reunion of soul and body.

But while we remain in this world, the Sacred Supper of Christ remains, as he governs all things from the right hand of the Father in such a way as to preserve that sacrament for us. And the song of our church, and our own song, likewise remains, so that we now close with verses 7 and 8:

O help, Lord, that we worthily Go to Your holy Table,
Our sins lamenting heartily, And with Your merits noble
And Your great kindness us refresh; Then surely e’er we’ll strive afresh
Thereby our life to better.

Lord Christ, to You be highest praise For this blest Supper given!
While ’gainst it men bold falsehood raise, Keep it for us from heaven!
Help that Your body and Your blood May be my soul’s consoling food
In my last moments! Amen.