Month: March 2016

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Say, "My Christ Lives"

Text: Isaiah 65:17-25
Date: Easter Sunday + 3/27/16

Today almost everything is accomplished. Yes, Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.” But what was finished? Finished was His work, His work of fulfilling God’s Law as a human being for us and for our salvation, then His work of carrying the weight of the sin of the whole world to the cross, carrying all sin, everything that separates man from God, to death. Yes, His death. There Jesus died. But in Jesus’ death, death itself died, was disarmed, was stripped of its power. Jesus’ resurrection from death is the triumph of His mission of redemption. Now, as with the catechumens last night, so we also and all who are baptized into Christ are baptized into His death in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. But hold on. There’s more. Something is not yet finished. Continue reading “Say, "My Christ Lives"”

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Good Friday

Text: St. John Passion
Date: Good Friday + 3/25/05 | revised 3/25/16

John the Baptist announced the arrival of the Messiah, the Christ with the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The sacrifice of the Passover lamb every year was all about God’s deliverance of his people from bondage and slavery in Egypt. As God’s people were annually to remember their deliverance by means of the Passover, so all of that history pointed forward to the greater Passover and deliverance from mankind’s bondage to sin and death by means of the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God, Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, the Deliverer, the King, the Christ of God. One of the important details of the old Passover was as the Lord commanded through Moses, saying, “Your lamb shall be without blemish” [Exodus 12:5]. This detail would be fulfilled with perfection as the Lamb of God, the Messiah would be without blemish, that is, without sin, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Continue reading “Good Friday”

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The New Covenant

Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Date: Maundy Thursday + 3/24/16

God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah telling of “a new covenant with the house of
Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.” Since the beginning God’s promise of salvation has come in the form of a covenant, a contract with two sides between two parties. God’s covenant was between Him as the greater, the creator and savior, and His people as the weaker ones in need of salvation. The Old Testament is “the old covenant,” God’s promised deliverance calling forth the obedience of faith. Continue reading “The New Covenant”

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The Lord Will Deliver His People

Text: Deuteronomy 32:36-39
Date: Passion/Palm Sunday  3/20/16

Could not God have brought salvation from sin, death and the devil to the world without this dreadful and violent end? Could not God save you and bring you into His kingdom of grace simply by kindly changing His mind and welcoming you in? No, He could not. Continue reading “The Lord Will Deliver His People”

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Do You Not Perceive It?

Text: Isaiah 43:16-21
Date: Lent V + 3/13/16

No matter how far God’s people fall away from Him pursuing sinful ways, nevertheless they remain God’s people and God is their Savior. No matter how far you may fall away from God’s ways, nevertheless you remain God’s baptized people, identified with His Son’s redeeming death through that water, marked with the sign of the holy cross. That means there is and will always be hope. The verse just before our text in Isaiah 43 reads, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans’” (Is 43:14). As God used their enemies to impose the punishment of captivity, so now He uses them to bring them redemption. So it is on this Fifth Sunday in Lent that Jesus’ enemies, the scribes and chief priests, sought to lay hands on Him and would eventually bring about His death by crucifixion. Yet Jesus remains their Savior and brings about salvation through the very death they themselves, we ourselves(!) caused. Continue reading “Do You Not Perceive It?”

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Happy Homecoming

Text: Isaiah 12:1-6
Date: Lent IV + 3/6/16

You came back! Boy am I glad to see you! After last Sunday’s emphasis on repentance of sin, quizzing ourselves on only the first and sixth commandments, realizing how just the first command by itself lays us bare and helpless (though if you listened carefully there was of course the Gospel of the forgiveness of our sins) hopefully more than just a few of you caught how devastating is God’s Law, how serious is our constant need of contrition, repentance and renewed faith. Today we heard of a young man who learned repentance the hard way. It is always a hard way if indeed it is real true repentance of real true sin. But I am glad to see you came back. And like the return of the prodigal son today God through the prophet Isaiah gives us words of rejoicing and glad celebration over the fact that, as the psalm says of God our Father, “But with you there is forgiveness” (Ps 130:4). And that forgiveness and joy is totally a gift because of God’s only Son who has become your Lord and Savior in such repentance and faith. Continue reading “Happy Homecoming”