Midweek 4 – 2021 LSB #’s 558, 645, 421
Text – Luke 24:47 And that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. LOVE THAT COMES IN MANY WAYS In the name of Jesus, who so richly gives us his Holy Spirt & the forgiveness of our sins. Amen. There was man who loved a woman. She had his whole heart. Her birthday came, & he decided that he really wanted her to know how special she was to him & how much he loved her. As she sat at work that day, a deliveryman came with a bouquet of flowers & a note that read, “Happy birthday! I love you!” He took her to lunch at her favorite restaurant, where a card on the table read, “Happy birthday! I love you!” At the end of the meal, he gave her a gift to unwrap: jewelry. He looked her in the eye & said, “Happy birthday. I love you.” Coming out of the restaurant, she looked up, & there was a low-flying plane pulling a banner, that read, “Happy birthday! I love you!” After work, when she got home & was sitting & thinking what a nice day it had been, & how over-the-top her beloved had been with everything, the doorbell rang, she opened the door, & there stood three people, who started singing. It was a singing telegram, expressing the man’s love for her. Are you waiting for the punch line? God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit loves you. In the Lenten sermons this year, we are focusing on the enormity of God’s mercy for us in Christ, & tracing the great dimensions of His love. Last week’s theme was “Love That Spares No Cost.” We reflected on the staggering price that God was willing to pay for our good – the precious blood of Christ. This week, the theme is: God’s love comes to us in many ways. The sermon text is from Luke 24, a passage that describes Jesus meeting with His disciples after His resurrection from the dead: Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses & the Prophets & the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44 ESV) At that point, He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, & continued: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer & on the 3rd day rise from the dead, & that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:46-49 ESV) After Jesus rises from the dead, before He ascends to heaven, He repeats this central truth to His disciples: His coming into the world, His suffering, dying, & rising from the dead, has all been toward this end: the forgiveness of sins. Now, Jesus is sending His disciples into the world to call people to repent of their sins, & to proclaim the forgiveness of their sins in His name. Why is the forgiveness of sins so important? Without it, those sins separate us from God. Without the forgiveness of our sins, we stand as enemies of God. Without the forgiveness of our sins, God does not look upon us with favor, He does not look upon us as His dear children. Without the forgiveness of sins, every day we are storing up wrath for ourselves before God. As James 5:5 puts it, we are “fattening ourselves in the day of slaughter.” Without the forgiveness of our sins, we should rightly go through this life glancing over our shoulder at all times, wondering how & when God Himself is going to oppose & punish us. Without the forgiveness of sins, not our death, not even the end of the world, can bring us shelter from God’s judgment – for the Bible clearly teaches that it is appointed to a man to die once, & then the judgment. Every person in this world will one day stand before the judgment throne of God, & He is just & holy. Without the forgiveness of our sins, we would be excluded from God’s glorious presence & His joyous kingdom, subject to everlasting punishment. But with the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus’s name, God looks upon us with favor & pure love. With the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus’s name, we are reconciled to God, & every moment of our lives He regards us as His dear children. With the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus’ name, we can know with confidence that, on the day of judgment, there will be no wrath or punishment, but rather a joyful embrace in the arms of our loving God. With the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name, we will receive all good things in endless joy & eternal pleasure. All this God does because of His love for us in Christ, & He does it through the forgiveness of our sins that He bestows on us in the name of Jesus. To display His great love for us, then, God gives the gift that we need more than anything else: the forgiveness of sins. God sends this gift out into the world, desiring that all nations, that all people, would receive it. This forgiveness is not a hidden mystery to be discovered. It is not something we need to hunt for in the bowels of a deep cave, guarded by a dozen deadly traps & snares, like treasure in an Indiana Jones movie. The forgiveness of sins is not a prize that we need to climb into heaven to attain, or that we arrive at through meditation or self-enlightenment. Rather, the forgiveness of sins is something that God sends to you & me, something that God brings to us. “Thus it is written, [Jesus said to His disciples] that the Christ should suffer & on the 3rd day rise from the dead, & that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:46-47 ESV) God sends this forgiveness forth. This greatest of gifts ends up in your hands because God wants to give it to you, even because He brings it to you. Listen to this summary: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified & kept me in the true faith. In the same way, He calls, gathers, enlightens & sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, & keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church, He daily & richly forgives me all my sins, & the sins of all believers.” In the catechism, we confess, “In this Christian Church, God daily & richly forgives all my sins & the sins of all believers.” Daily. Each & every day God extends His forgiveness. Just as He teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” so also He teaches us to pray, “And forgive us our trespasses…” You & I need forgiveness, & God grants us forgiveness just as continually as we need food, that is, daily! “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22–23) That is God forgiving us – every day. So, why does the catechism say that God forgives us richly? “In this Christian Church He daily & richly forgives me all my sins.” One way to think about it is to consider the rich multitude of ways that God brings His forgiveness into my life. The Lutheran Confessions state: The Gospel of forgiveness in Christ gives us help against sin “in more than one way, because God is extravagantly rich in His grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world... second, through Baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys & also through the mutual conversation & consolation of brothers & sisters.” (SA III:4; Kolb-Wengert translation) God loves you so much that He has won for you & gives to you the greatest gift a sinner could receive: full & free forgiveness, in Jesus’ name. God loves you so extravagantly that He gives you this greatest gift in numerous ways, that we call the “means of grace.” First, God conveys His forgiveness to you through the spoken gospel, as it is preached & taught & shared with you, by pastors, by Christian parents, teachers & friends. You hear about Jesus Christ & what He does for you, about His love, His faithfulness & obedience, His suffering & death, His resurrection & ascension, His compassion & help. You hear that He came to be your Savior, & that He lives forever to help you, to forgive you, to bring to you to eternal life. As you hear these things, as you hear this powerful, active gospel word, Yahweh is working repentance & faith in your heart. Your Lord is declaring to you His love. The Holy Trinity is bringing you forgiveness in the name of Jesus. But God is not content to declare His love for us & to grant us forgiveness in only one way, through only one means of grace. God also brings His forgiveness to us in Holy Baptism. Because of His powerful grace & promise, we enter the waters of baptism soiled with sin, but come forth clean & forgiven in Christ. As Peter declared on the day of Pentecost: “Repent & be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:28). And as Ananias urged Paul, “Brother Saul, rise & be baptized, & wash away your sins, calling on Jesus’ name!” (Acts 22:16) But our Lord is yet more extravagant. He also invites us to His sacred table, to commune with Him, to eat & to drink His very body & blood. “This is my body, which is given for you. This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Just as during His earthly ministry our dear Lord ate with tax collectors & prostitutes & sinners, so also today Jesus continues to display His enormous love to sinners: He invites people like you & me to His blessed sacrament at the altar. “Lord Jesus Christ, you have prepared this feast for our salvation; it is your body & your blood, & at your invitation as weary souls with sin oppressed, we come to you for needed rest, for comfort & for pardon.” LSB 622:1. And our Lord is yet more extravagant in His love & mercy. He has entrusted to His church the power to speak forgiveness directly in His name, in the words of Absolution. When, in spite of all His other assurances, our heart still doubts our forgiveness in Christ, God authorized human beings to pronounce His pardon, to say “I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Spirit.” Based on the words of Jesus to His disciples, we believe that “when called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation & absolve those who repent of their sins & want to do better, this is just as valid & certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.” The preached & spoken word, Holy Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Absolution, & there’s even more! Not exactly a singing telegram, but God does send people into our lives for the purpose of testifying to our forgiveness in Christ, to bring that forgiveness to us in the name of Jesus. The words read earlier from the Lutheran Confessions speak of “the mutual conversation & consolation of brothers & sisters.” Not only from our pastor’s lips, but also from the lips of others, God Himself is at work, beating back the sinful unbelief & the stubborn doubts that live in our hearts. Through the lips of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, a neighbor, even there God testifies to, & displays His love for all. In these several ways God piles up His love in our lives; heaps up His assurances, that in Jesus’s death & resurrection, our sins are forgiven. Some Christians of other denominations question why God would need to grant His forgiveness in so many different ways. For example, they fear that we may trust in baptism to forgive instead of trusting in Jesus. Or they fear that we put our trust in the forgiveness of the Lord’s Supper instead of trusting in Jesus. Yet, the Bible encourages us to trust in the forgiveness which God gives us so richly in all of these ways. It is not some different forgiveness; it is all God’s forgiveness for Jesus’s sake, grounded in the death & resurrection of our Savior. Lutherans rejoice to receive all of these gifts, all these means of grace, because God Himself has given them to us, in love. When Jesus declared that “repentance & forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name, to all nations,” He was including all these blessed means by which God daily & richly forgives all my sins, & the sins of all believers. God loves you, dear friends, with an enormous love. In the extravagance of His love, & in His great concern that you be constantly certain & sure of it, He extends forgiveness to you in these many ways. It’s like He wants to be sure you keep warm, so He gives you not one coat, or two, but four or five. “Who needs four or five coats?” we might say. “That’s ridiculous!” Yet, God knows that sometimes the world can be very, very cold. And He wants you to remain always in the warm security of His love. Praise be to Him, who has so loved us in His Son, & who makes that love & mercy known to us in many ways. Amen. Surely in temples made with hands God, the Most High, is not dwelling; high above earth His temple stands, all earthly temples excelling. Yet He who dwells in heaven above chooses to live with us in love, making our bodies His temple. We are God’s house of living stones, built for His own habitation. He through baptismal grace us owns heirs of His wondrous salvation. Were we but two His name to tell, yet He would deign with us to dwell with all His grace & His favor. Amen. LSB 645:2-3. 3rd Sunday in Lent – B LSB #’s 556:1-3; 556:4-7; 923
Text – John 2:19 & 22 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, & in three days I will raise it up.” When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, & they believed the Scripture & the word that Jesus had spoken. THEN THEY BELIEVED THE SCRIPTURE Complacency is a blight that saps your energy, dulls your attitude, drains your mental & emotional resources. The 1st symptom is satisfaction with things as they are. The 2nd is rejection of things as they might be. “Good enough” becomes today’s catchword & tomorrow’s standard. Good enough for government work was a saying of a man I used to work for. Complacency makes people fear the unknown, mistrust the untried, & abhor the new. Like water, complacent people follow the easiest course – downhill. They draw a false sense of comfort & strength from looking to the way things have always been done. No matter how inadequate things are, they are satisfied. Are you satisfied with your spiritual life? Are you satisfied with what you know about God’s Word? Are you satisfied with your church? Have you become complacent? The Jewish people of Jesus’ time had. They knew that the “marketing” in the Temple was wrong, but they’d become comfortable with it. They were satisfied. Oh, they may have mumbled & grumbled, but they weren’t about to rock the boat. They’d given up on trying to change things for the right. They’d made an accommodation with the devil. In what areas do you see our society, or our church, becoming complacent? There must be some. When you sit around & complain about things, there has to be a topic. Is it the sexual immorality we see everywhere? Or, are we so accustomed to it, we barely notice it anymore? It’s on TV, at the movies, in the magazines & on the Internet. It’s even in our own lives. Maybe it’s the children, maybe the grandchildren, maybe even the parents. At any rate, it’s too delicate a topic to bring up isn’t it? How about the drug abuse, like binge drinking & smoking pot? Does that strike you as a problem our country has become accustomed to? Drug abuse played a factor in a tragic accident where I lived in North Dakota. Maybe you drinks a bit yourself, maybe not, but have you lovingly talked to someone who does have a problem with abuse? Do you contribute to, or work with, any of the Pro-Life groups? They’re not only trying to outlaw abortion or euthanasia. They’re also trying to rescue real people from either of those dangers. Whether it’s the child to be aborted or the mother, abortion is unhealthy for both. And assisted suicide does not only affect the one who dies. Groups such as Lutherans for Life, help support & encourage people who’re facing those decisions. They do that, not only with words & prayer, but with deeds & material goods as well. Lutherans for Life have plenty of room & need for your support. Or, have abortion & unwanted pregnancies become too large a problem for you? Have you become complacent? Theologically speaking, it used to be a given that people actually believed Genesis as it says: “In the beginning, God created the heavens & the earth.” But, with evolution being taught in our schools since the 1960’s, people who believe in God’s creation have become the minority, even in the church. The Pope has stated that evolutionary theory is compatible with Scripture. Our culture is so concerned with being politically correct, that few people have courage for their convictions any longer. Our postmodern society teaches us not to have convictions in the 1st place. Everyone is allowed to have their own truth, & you choose which reality you live in. People can choose entirely different realities & they’re just as valid – just as real. Given the mindset in our culture, you might as well be complacent & apathetic. You can’t fight the system, & if you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em. So we sit tight, we keep our mouth shut, & hope that things turn out for the best. We don’t want to get our hands dirty or be inconvenienced, & we certainly don’t want to be attacked by the cancel culture. Fortunately for us, our Lord Jesus Christ did not sit tight & keep His mouth shut. He did fight the system. He did not accept the status quo. He was not apathetic or complacent. He didn’t settle for “good enough.” He wasn’t afraid of taking on the hypocrites, & He did all that in our place, & for us. Even His hands got dirty with the blood of His crucifixion. The reason why – He loved us, & our love for Him motivates us to do the same. To forgive those who do not deserve it, to speak out against the abuses in our society and in our church. The theory of evolution is wrong. Abortion is wrong. Euthanasia is wrong. Drunkenness & sexual immorality are wrong. They are all an offense to our Lord. But in addition every one of them has consequences. The results do not end when the sin stops. The hurt & the pain continue. The abuse continues, & only the news of our forgiveness is able to change people & stop those cycles of destruction. Each of you has that message of forgiveness, just as Jesus & His disciples did. What are you doing with it? Have you put it on the shelf of things that you’ll get around to someday? Or have you already packed it away in the box of things that you’re too afraid to touch? PAUSE Most of all we need to apply that message of forgiveness to ourselves. As Christ cleansed the Temple, He also would cleanse our hearts. He has already purchased our forgiveness with His death on the cross. It’s the worst kind of shame when someone who knows of that forgiveness is unwilling to accept it for themselves. After Jesus had cleansed the Temple, the Jews there demanded of Him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do this?” You see they understood that what they were doing was wrong. They recognized their need for repentance & forgiveness, but they did not want to receive it. In their foolish unbelief, they instead demanded signs & explanations. In their complacency & lack of concern for obedience to God, they had compromised their faith. Now, it was dead. The false doctrine that they believed, taught & practiced had killed their ability to trust in the true Messiah. Their lack of repentance made them too weak & unhealthy to help others. That’s why Jesus takes what seems to be a very radical approach to His cleansing of the Temple. Our Lord & Savior was not concerned with being politically correct, or with winning friends. He was concerned with preaching the Law in order that the guilty might see the error of their ways, & become repentant, & come back to life. Not only had their false teachings caused their faith to die, it was liable to take others to hell with them. Christ’s love for all His brothers & sisters drove Him to cleansing the Temple, even if it was not politically correct. We should rejoice that God’s Son would be so driven, because it was that same love that drove Him to His crucifixion. God’s love for us is so strong that not even the thought of death caused Him to compromise. After all the failures of His people, throughout the OT, our Heavenly Father could have become complacent & given up. He could have said that it just wasn’t worth it. Let them lie in their own bed. They made it. Instead, Christ went to the cross. He went there & gave His life. What is sad is that our sinful nature allows us to be complacent even while knowing that God died for you & for me. The sermon text reveals that Jesus’ own disciples had no idea what He was talking about until after His resurrection. But in that statement we find hope for ourselves, because it shows that God is patient & faithful. He will allow & bring events into our lives to draw us closer to Him – events that will give us reason to reflect upon life & its meaning. People who’ve had abortions actually do come to repentance. Drug abusers do come to the realization that Jesus Christ gives life; alcohol & methamphetamine do not. People who’re involved in sexual addictions learn that Christ Jesus is the answer to their obsessions, & their need to be accepted. People of all walks of life are enabled by God to reject their complacency & to overcome the temptations of Satan to give up, to stay home or to surrender. The power of the Holy Spirit is able to drive Satan & his demons out of our lives & to cleanse the temple of God that is our body. Through the power of the Word & Baptism & the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit makes our hearts into a house of prayer. For that reason it’s not a good idea to absent ourselves from God’s means of grace. It’s only through them that our Lord works to cleanse us from our complacency & apathy. When God spoke His Words at creation, the nothingness did not understand Him, yet the entire universe came to be. When Lazarus was dead for four days & in the tomb, he didn’t understand Jesus when Messiah said to him, “Come out.” The power of God’s Word did what Jesus said it would do, & thus Lazarus, raised from the dead, came out of the grave. As God enables you to believe the Scripture, & the Words that Jesus has spoken, then faith will be created in your heart out of nothing. You will be brought back from death to life. Amen. To me He said, “Stay close to me, I am your rock & castle. Your ransom I myself will be, for you I strive & wrestle. For I am yours & you are mine, & where I am you may remain. The foe shall not divide us.” Amen. LSB 556:7 Midweek 3 LSB #’s 544, 425, 430
Text – 1 Peter 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. LOVE THAT SPARES NO COST In the name of Jesus, who demonstrated His love for us in this that He shed His precious blood that we might live with Him forever. Amen. For Lent we are meditating on the size of God’s love & mercy for us in Christ. In doing so, we should ask, “How do you measure someone’s love for someone else – how deep it is, how broad, how high?” Holy Scripture tells us that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that God ransomed sinners, but with something far more dear – the precious blood of Christ, slain on the cross, like a lamb of sacrifice. A fish has been used as a symbol for Christianity from the early days of the church, & you still see it today – the fish symbol drawn with two curved lines. Most early Christians understood Greek, & the Greek word for fish, ichthus, was an acronym for the Greek words that said, “Jesus-Christ-God’s-Son-Savior.” So the fish symbol was a visual reminder of this short little confession, that Jesus is the Messiah, the very Son of God, who saved us from our sins. It’s a good symbol, that fish. I’m not sure how you would draw an empty tomb in a simple way, so maybe that’s why it wasn’t used. Yet, for a faith that confesses the triumph & the reign of the living Jesus, raised to life again, for a faith that rejoices in the promise that – because He lives, we too shall rise & live forever, it seems like Jesus’ empty tomb might be a great symbol. But for Christians throughout the ages, the chief symbol has always been the cross. Have you thought of how strange that is? The cross was a Roman instrument of public torture & execution. When we wear a cross around our neck, it’s like decorating ourselves with a shiny little image of an electric chair. When churches hang a huge cross on the front wall of their church, it’s like displaying a gallows or a hangman’s noose. When architects design a church steeple with a cross at the top, it’s like lifting up before the world a guillotine. So why do we Christians keep this symbol, this executioner’s cross, so prominent among us? For one thing, that is where Jesus accomplished our salvation. That’s where, by His blood & death, He paid the penalty for every one of our sins, which created peace between God & man. Another reason the cross is such a precious symbol to Christians is that, in the cross of Jesus, we see most clearly just how much our God loves us. The cross, like no other symbol, should cry out to us every time we see it: Behold how much God loves you! It’s been many years now since Mel Gibson produced the movie The Passion of the Christ. It was a movie focusing on the last week of Jesus’ life, especially His trial & crucifixion. The film was controversial & sparked a lot of conversation & debate. It has its strengths & weaknesses. It was certainly violent, graphic & bloody. Some objected to the extended scenes of the torture of Jesus as gratuitous violence, the product of a director who was in love with violence, produced for an audience that had a thirst for violence. Others warned that the film portrayed the Jews as Christ-killers, & that it might result in violence against Jewish people. Some lamented that across the entire, long film, there was nothing of the purest, highest aspect of true religion, which is love. Still, for many Christians who saw the film, though they may have found it hard to watch, they also found it to be a powerful display of just how much Jesus does loves us – that He would endure for us such hatred & scorn, abuse & pain. How large is God’s love for you? How do you measure how much He values you? One way to understand that is to ask, “What would He pay to have you?” What would God be willing to give for your good, for your welfare & for your safety? Putting that into perspective, how much do you value a good cup of coffee – enough to pay four or five dollars? How much do you value your dog or cat – enough to pay for all the food & grooming & medicine & check-ups? How much do you value having the latest phone – enough to pay . . . whatever it is they’re asking these days? To some extent, the cost you’re willing to pay for something shows how much you value that thing. At the cross of Jesus, a price was paid; a cost that cannot begin to be measured in money. At the cross, you & I were ransomed, purchased & obtained for God, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” It is a staggering cost which reveals a staggering love. The Bible marvels at this cost from two perspectives, that of the Father & that of the Son. The 1st is that of God the Father offering up His only & beloved Son for sinners. When the Bible speaks of Jesus as God’s only Son & as God’s beloved Son, it evokes the heart-wrenching story of Abraham & the near-sacrifice of Isaac: “Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, & go to the land of Moriah, & offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Genesis 22:1–2) Can you imagine? In the end, God sent His angel to stop Abraham, who had the knife in hand, & God instead provided a ram for the sacrifice. In the fullness of time, God would again provide a sacrifice, a more perfect sacrifice, One for the sin of all humanity: not Isaac, the only & beloved son of Abraham, but rather Jesus, God’s only & beloved Son from all eternity. This time, no animal would appear in a thicket to spare the Son or the Father this cost. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is not a lamb, but a Son. In His love & mercy toward sinners, God the Father gave up His only, beloved Son to the pain & shame of crucifixion, to divine judgment & abandonment: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried out from the cross. Oh, what His mercy toward us sinners cost the Father! The Bible doesn’t dwell on the emotional poignancy of the Father sacrificing His Son, but it does derive great comfort from the fact that the Father spent so much. St. Paul wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31–32) Our salvation has come at a staggering cost to the Father, but the Bible also speaks of this cost from a 2nd perspective, that of the Son, who goes willingly to the cross: “I lay down my life for the sheep. No one takes it from me, I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 10:15, 18) Jesus was determined, He was resolute, in walking His path to the cross, even though He knew the cost would be dreadful. Facing the hour of His betrayal & suffering, Jesus deliberated, “Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour!” (John 12:27) In Gethsemane, Jesus said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death.” Yet He prayed, “My Father, your will be done.” (Mt 26:38, 42) The cost was so unthinkable that Jesus sweated drops of blood while He prayed. An angel appeared, not to prevent the sacrifice, but to comfort Him, & Jesus refused to summon the twelve legions of angels who could have rescued Him. Jesus’ mercy was so rich & His love so abounding that He paid this staggering cost for sinners. “Glory be to Jesus, who in bitter pains, poured for me the lifeblood, from His sacred veins.” (LSB 433:1) How great is God’s love for you? What are its depths & dimensions? Behold the cost to the Father & the Son, willingly paid, willingly suffered, willingly offered to give up one’s life for another is a tremendous sacrifice. We call it “the ultimate sacrifice.” A life is an enormous payment, a staggering cost, but the cost at the cross of Jesus was something of even greater worth. It was the lifeblood of the Son of God. The holy & eternal Word, now in our flesh, heaves & gasps on the cross. The all-glorious Son of God, before whom the angels of heaven cry aloud in joy & praise & awe, the only-begotten Son of the Father from eternity, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God. His blood runs out. His breath expires. God dies, for the lives of men who killed Him. One drop of His blood is more precious than heaven & earth. The cost of all this! Behold the love of God, how deep, how broad, how high. This great cost proves God’s love for you & also reveals how desperately we need His forgiveness. The precious, infinite cost reveals how serious & damnable our sin was. In the garden, Jesus had prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:39) If it had been possible, if there were some other way, if there were some lesser cost, some lesser price that would have restored us, would the Father have denied the Son’s prayer? But our sin is so wicked, such an offense against God & so much harm to God’s creatures, that it required the blood of the only, beloved Son of God – a cost that He has willingly paid. “Ye who neither think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load; ’Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed, Son of Man & Son of God.” (LSB 451:3) “He has redeemed me, a lost & condemned person, purchased & won me from all sins, from death, & from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood & with His innocent suffering & death, that I may be His own & live under Him in His kingdom & serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence & blessedness.” Yes, the cross is the most cherished symbol of our religion. It reminds us again & again & again of the saving death of Jesus Christ for sinners. It reminds us again & again & again of just how much our Creator loves us. Amen. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss & pour contempt on all my pride. See, from His head, His hands, His feet sorrow & love flow mingled down! Did e’er such love & sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a tribute far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all! Amen. LSB 425:1, 3-4. |
AuthorPastor Dean R. Poellet Archives
April 2024
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