The Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord (Easter)

 The Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord – April 20, 2025

Psalm 8; Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

St. Mark 16:1-20

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.[1]

The fast is over, and the feast has begun. Christ the Lord, who was slain, is risen from the dead. Alleluia! Christ has conquered sin and death, buried them in the grave, never to rise again. Alleluia! Our hope, our faith, rests on the historic reality of the resurrection of Christ. “Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst His three-day prison, our faith had been in vain: But now has Christ arisen!”[2] Alleluia!

By all measures of how we understand history, the events of the past, there can be no objection to the reality of the resurrection. Only the logic of fallen man can insist Christ did not rise. Only the sin-stained conscience can claim, “I’ve never seen someone rise from the dead, therefore Christ couldn’t have risen.”

And yet the consolation of souls does not end with the historic reality of Christ’s resurrection. We mustn’t hear the story of the resurrection in the same way we hear and understand Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Washington crossing the Delaware, or Gordon’s last stand at Khartoum. Christ did not just rise from the dead. He rose for you. His resurrection is your resurrection. There is a great gulf of difference between “Christ is a Savior and King” and “Christ is my Savior and King.”

Yet even the Christian conscience, still assaulted by sin, struggles with this notion. Christ’s own disciples scarcely believed that He had risen from the dead. We stand separated from the historic event by 2,000 years, making it even harder to accept. Yet Christ said, “Go and tell my brothers.”[3] Brothers and sisters in Christ, He was speaking of you.

“You have heard in the Passion how Christ let Himself be crucified and buried and how sin and death trampled Him underfoot. Satan and the sins of the world lie on Him in the tomb. Sin, death, and the devil are His lord. Therefore you must look into His tomb and realize that my sins and my death tear Him apart and oppress Him. There the devil regards himself as secure, and the chief priests boast and rejoice: He is gone and will not return.

“But in the instant when they believe Him destroyed, the Lion tears Himself away from sin, death, hell, and the jaws of the devil and rips them to shreds with His teeth. This is our comfort, that Christ comes forth: Death, sin, and the devil cannot hold Him. The sin of the entire world is powerless. When He appears to Mary Magdalene, one sees in Him neither death nor sin nor sadness, but sheer life and joy. There I see that the Lor is mine and treads on the devil. Then I find my sins, torment, and devil where I ought to find them. There is the seed of the woman, who has struck the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15), and says, ‘Death, you shall die; Hell, you shall be defeated!’ Here is the victor.”[4]

It is a Christian art to regard Christ as the One alone whose business it is to deal with our sins. Malformed by sin, our conscience wants to believe that either we can manage sin on our own or that nothing can be done about our sin. In the first case, if we could manage sin on our own, then we have no need for Christ. His death would be in vain, and salvation would be according to your own ability to prove yourself righteous before the Almighty God. You must be perfect as God is perfect. What a silly, self-righteous notion that we could approach God in our filth and demand salvation.

In the second case, despair over your sin, there is nothing you can do. Faced with sin, temptation, plague, and assaults of the devil, you have no recourse…except to abandon what your conscience says and turn to Christ. Look to what He has said and what He has done. Christ did not die and rise for Himself. He gained nothing for Himself. He died and rose again for you, to give you everything that already belonged to Him. He is the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”[5] He took your sins into death and the grave, and there they remain. He rose the spotless lamb, no longer bearing your sins because they remained in the grave. The devil will try to convince you otherwise, but you know the truth – Christ has arisen for you! The deadly power of death is gone for Christ has destroyed it.

When your sins lie on Christ, you can see what they’ve done. They crushed Him on the cross and drove Him deep into the ground. “But because today He comes forth from the grave and remains in honor and glory, everything that the devil, sin, and death have done is destroyed.”[6] This idea is foreign and contrary to human reason, yet the Scriptures still stand. The Scriptures do not lie when they say your sins lie on Christ and if they are on Him, they are not accounted to you. The Christian has no sin and is a lord over sin. This is most certainly true.

And satan cannot stand this. He has a tremendous labor to fight against the resurrection and accuse Christians. We can stare into the very pits of hell and proclaim, “You who have tortured and killed Christ, now you get what you deserve! You thought you had won the victory but your coup de gras did nothing but ensure your defeat. Christ is risen and you are defeated!”

The devil works hard to tear this truth from our hearts. That is why we stand on the truth of the resurrection apart from the thoughts of our hearts. The witness of the God-breathed Scriptures and the objective testimony of history cannot be overthrown. It is true this day just as it was true that first Easter morning. Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] This sermon is inspired by Martin Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning, March 28, 1529: The Resurrection of Christ and Its Meaning,” The 1529 Holy Week and Easter Sermons of Dr. Martin Luther, Translated by Irving L. Sandberg (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1998), 119-127.

[2] This Joyful Eastertide, refrain, LSB 482; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:14, 20.

[3] St. Matthew 28:10.

[4] Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning,” 124.

[5] St. John 1:29.

[6] Luther, “Easter Sunday Morning,” 125.

The Easter Vigil

 The Great Vigil of Easter – April 19, 2025

Genesis 1:1-3:24; Genesis 7:1-9:17; Exodus 14:10-15:1; Daniel 3:1-30

St. Matthew 28:1-7

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Easter Vigil bridges the gap between the Crucifixion on Good Friday and the Feast of the Resurrection on Easter morning. We began in darkness as we kindled a new flame. This flame is to represent the Light of Christ, by which the Word of God is revealed to us. He is the light shining in dark places and He illumines the Scriptures so that we might understand them. Only in Christ can we understand what it is the Scriptures say to us concerning faith.

Having lit the new flame, we heard four prophecies of God’s great works within creation: Creation and the Fall, the Flood, Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea, and the Fiery Furnace. Each of these is a description of God’s activity in the world to save His people, His mercy and gracious love toward man. They are at the same time a description of His judgment against sin.

We then entered the service of Holy Baptism, in which we remembered the gracious promises made to us in the waters of Holy Baptism. We repeated the vows and declarations made at Holy Baptism not because they needed to be renewed or strengthened, but to remind ourselves of what Baptism is and what glorious blessings it bestows.

Then there was the Service of Prayer, a unique litany. This service of prayer is a plea to God that the benefits of His salvation would come to us this very night. And during the hymn which followed, our church was transformed. The paraments and altar appointments returned, now clothed in white and gold, the lights came on, and we sang the Gloria in Excelsis, the song of the angels that fell silent 70 days ago. The transition from Lent to Easter is now complete, having heard of Christ’s glorious resurrection from the dead. And soon, we will feast on that very same body that though once dead, is now living.

That first Easter morning, God sent an angel to announce the resurrection of Christ. The women had come to see a tomb, the place of the dead, but the angel gently corrects their intentions. It is not a tomb, not a dead man they seek, but the living Christ. We are going to pay very close attention to the words of the angel’s message this evening.

First, he proclaims, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.”[1] That last part should really say, “Jesus, the Crucified One.” It expresses something that happened in the past but is an ongoing reality. That is not to say that Jesus is still being crucified. Rather, the crucifixion is the defining characteristic of Christ. In this way, He loved us, namely that He bore our sins on the cross and buried them in the grave, so that when He rose again, death would be conquered, and our sins would remain forever in the grave. He is eternally The Crucified because He is eternally our substitute. The Crucified One is the eternal sacrifice given once and for all.

The angel continues, “He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.”[2] Again, this needs clarification. The phrase, “He is risen” should be something like, “He rose.” It expresses a one-time event in the past that is concluded, finished, done, over with. It is as much as saying “He won. Period.” Christ’s resurrection is the final nail in satan’s coffin. It is the seal on your salvation. His resurrection is your resurrection, so much can you place your hope and confidence on Him. If He was raised from the dead, so shall you.

It might seem odd to think that the ongoing characteristic of Christ is that He is the Crucified One while the resurrection is a singular past event. It might seem like they should be the other way around. Yet this is the beauty of the angel’s message. The Crucified One is the all atoning sacrifice for sinners yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. His forgiveness is not a one-time event. It endures for all time.

His resurrection, on the other hand, needed only happen once and to be done. The death stroke against death is complete, finished. “Satan, you thought you had triumphed when they placed my Lord in the grave, but He rose. You are finished. Christ won. You lost. Period.”

Finally, the angel says, “Indeed Christ is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him.”[3] Here, the translation of the angel’s message is correct and oh so beautiful. “He is going before you.” Christ is one the move. He did not rise to sit idle. He isn’t fleeing from man. He is on the move, going from place to place, to be with man. He leads and He follows. He goes before the women to Galilee, to bring Himself to the nations, that all who hear His word and receive Christ will receive the benefits of the Crucified One.

So too, He goes before you this evening. He goes before you as your Christ. He goes before you to be with you and to lead you unto your heavenly home. Christ is the Crucified One for you today and always. Christ rose for you, that you would rise with Him. Christ is going before you to show you the way to everlasting life.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] St. Matthew 28:5.

[2] St. Matthew 28:6.

[3] St. Matthew 28:7.

The Baptism of our Lord

The Baptism of our Lord (obs.) – January 12, 2025

Psalm 89; Isaiah 25:1; 26:11a; 28:5a, 2b, 10a; 41:18a, a; 52:13b; 12:3-5; Ephesians 1:13b-18

St. Matthew 3:13-17

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the season following the Epiphany of our Lord, the Church pays special attention to the miracles of our Lord. This is recognizing the connection between Christmas and Epiphany. At Christmas, we celebrate that God has become man. At Epiphany, we celebrate that this man is God. He is one man with two natures – True God and True Man.

It might be a little strange to think of the Baptism of our Lord as one of His miracles, but it is. And I’m not talking just about the revelation of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, though these are the clearest words of Scripture on that point. The Son rises from the waters. The Holy Spirit descends from heaven as a dove and alights upon the Son, anointing Him, setting Him apart for His work of salvation. The Father opens the heavens and says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”[1]

Our Lord’s baptism is a miracle because by it, He is sanctifying all waters to be used for your baptism. His baptism is not for the remission of His own sins, He doesn’t have any. His baptism is a baptism into your sins, that they would be placed on Him. This also has the effect of making your baptism powerful. In your baptism, your sins are taken away. In Jesus’ baptism, your sins are placed upon Him. If you imagine your sins as dirt and muck clinging to a washcloth, all that dirt and muck is washed away in your baptism. Christ, the perfect and clean washcloth, is baptized into that dirty water to soak up all the muck and take it upon Himself. You arise from the waters pure and clean. He arises bearing your sins. The miracle of your baptism is the miracle of our Lord’s Baptism.

So then, what is Holy Baptism? It “is not simple water only, but it is the water comprehended in God’s command and connected with God’s word.”[2] Though the image of a dirty washrag being made clean is helpful, Holy Baptism is not just a bath. It is not the removal of dirt from the body. It is a sacrament, that is, God’s word combined with a physical element (in this case water) and used according to God’s command. That command comes at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel, “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”[3] Holy Baptism is therefore the rite of initiation into the Body of Christ. It is the means by which Christ brings sinners into the Church, into His Body.

But what does it do? Or, what benefit is there to Holy Baptism? “It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”[4] Holy Baptism forgives the sins of the baptized. It takes the sinner, born a citizen of the kingdom of satan, and grants him citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. It takes a son of this world and makes him a son of God, marking him as an heir of eternal life, giving him a share in the inheritance of all that Christ has done.

This is a great treasure and should be prized by all who would bear the name of Christ. When satan rears his ugly head and tempts you to despair, it is good to remember the suffering and death of Christ on your behalf. But satan is an expert in temptation. He will tempt you to question if what Christ has done is good enough for you, or if you are good enough for Christ. For that reason, look to your baptism. There can be no question that you are baptized. You have had the waters of forgiveness poured out upon you. You have been baptized into Christ and no amount of suffering can take that away. You have been baptized into the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. Of this you can be absolutely certain.

And if you have been baptized into Christ, then He is good enough for you. No matter what wicked things satan might whisper, it can never overcome the voice of the Father, “You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.” If you are baptized into Christ and the Father has said these words of Him, then He has said them of you as well. He says them at every Holy Baptism, even if our mortal ears are too weak to hear the sound.

How can water, plain water drawn from the tap, do such great things, deliver you from death and the devil and forgive your sins? “It is not the water indeed that does them, but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water.”[5] Holy Baptism is not our work. It is not my work, even if I am the one saying the words and pouring the water. Holy Baptism is the work of God who, through His word, is tying Himself to the water. Through the Word of God, this water becomes “a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Ghost.”

Now, even this miraculous work of God must be received. It is received by faith. At the same time that Holy Baptism bestows this faith, it is faith which receives the benefit of this glorious sacrament. This means that the baptized must continually be nurtured by the Word of God. The forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death and the devil cannot be taken away from faith but faith itself can be abandoned. The mighty ship of Holy Baptism is unsinkable, but we have the ability to jump ship if we prefer the things of this world to the Word of God. While Holy Baptism is a miraculous working of God, it is not a once-and-done, get out of hell free card. Using baptism according to the command of God necessarily includes a lifetime of learning. “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”

The gift of Holy Baptism is for you, your children, and your grandchildren but it also necessary that you, your children, and your grandchildren continue to hear the Word of God, receive the forgiveness of sins, learn and grow in and into the things of God. Holy Baptism grants the baptized of any age everything necessary for salvation, but the slothful ignoring of your baptism is to despise your baptism. Satan is a crafty deceiver and will spend every day of your life tempting you away from the Word of God which has been joined to you in Holy Baptism. Don’t give him the upper hand by refusing to hear and receive that Word.

And when I say hear, I don’t mean sitting in the pew and letting the sound reverberate against your eardrums without entering your heart. The teaching connected to Holy Baptism is something that must continually work on your heart, mind, and soul. If at the end of the year, you are unchanged by the Word of God, from the youngest of you to the oldest, then you have prevented the Word of God from working on you. You have prevented the very faith into which you were baptized from acting upon your soul. Now is the time to return to your baptism. Now is the time to repent of your sloth and indifference to the Word of God and return to your baptism as a little child, hearing the things of God and receiving from Him the forgiveness of your sins.

And as the Baptized, such repentance will always result in the forgiveness of sins. That is why we are here. No one within these walls is without sin. We do not come here to receive forgiveness as a license to do whatever we want. We do not come to receive forgiveness as though it was something we are owed. We come to receive forgiveness as repentant sinners who know the cost of our sin. We see our sin and want to be free from it. We see that our sin has again stained the waters of Holy Baptism and that the Son of God, motivated by His great love for us, has taken that sin upon Himself and died for it. Hating sin and seeing the sacrifice of Christ, we gather in remembrance of His great mercy, humbly begging for that which is not our own – eternal life and salvation.

In this humility, we find confidence that what we ask for has been given to us. Though none of us deserves it, Christ our Lord sanctified the waters of the Jordan and all water to be a life- giving flood. He descended into the waters of Holy Baptism that we might rise to a new life. Holy Baptism “signifies that the Old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts and, again, a new man daily come forth and arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”[6]

The life of the Baptized is a combination of humility and confidence. We humbly recognize that we do not deserve a moment of God’s time, let alone His grace and mercy. We also are confident that He has had mercy on us and graciously poured out His blood on the cross that we might die to sin and rise to new life. In Holy Baptism, you have received the Holy Body and Precious Blood of Jesus, wrapped around you in a glorious robe of white. Humbly approach His throne of grace, confident that you are counted among the righteous—not by your own virtues, but by the Blood of Jesus, as a baptized child of God.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] St. Matthew 3:17.

[2] Martin Luther, Small Catechism, IV:1.

[3] St. Matthew 28:19.

[4] Small Catechism, IV:2.

[5] Small Catechism, IV:3a.

[6] Small Catechism, IV:4.

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity – September 1, 2024

Psalm 84; Proverbs 4:10-23; Galatians 5:16-24

St. Luke 17:11-19

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the collect for today, we asked that God would keep His Church with His perpetual mercy.[1] This wording connects us with the lepers who cry out to Jesus for His mercy. However, the original wording of this collect would have us ask God to keep His Church with His perpetual propitiation. Propitiation is the act of Jesus to appease, or satisfy, or resolve, the anger of the Father.[2] It is the aspect of the atonement that is directed toward God. Jesus’ death on the cross satisfied the punishment for sin. It satisfied God’s wrath toward sinful man.

A prayer for God to keep His Church through or by His perpetual propitiation is asking for God to continue to smile upon His people; that the propitiation of the wrath of God would last forever. How can God continue to smile upon His people? Only through the Body given and Blood shed of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean that Jesus’ Body and Blood are constantly re-sacrificed or constantly in a state of being sacrificed. Rather, that the Body and Blood of Jesus that were once crucified for the forgiveness of sins endures forever.[3] The crucifixion happened once. The effects of this sacrifice are perpetual, that is, they last forever.[4] They endure. The satisfaction of God’s anger toward sin is an everlasting state because Jesus is forever the Crucified One; crucified as adjective not verb.[5]

How might a return to this earlier collect be appropriate for this Gospel reading? The ten lepers cry out to Jesus to have mercy on them. They do not announce their leprosy, as commanded in the law. They do not beg for healing. They ask Jesus for mercy. They lift up their voices, a phrase commonly used for prayer. Jesus has mercy on them. All ten are cleansed. All ten are healed. But only one returns. Only the Samaritan returns to glorify God, that is, to give thanks to Jesus.

Did you catch that? What you might think of as two distinct actions are in fact one. The Samaritan leper glorifies God with a loud voice, that is, he falls on his face before Jesus’ feet and give Him thanks. The falling on his face is an act of worship. It is the word for worship. He bows before Jesus because he has realized that Jesus is the God of all creation. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The courts of the Lord, the Holy Habitation of the Almighty is the presence of Jesus.[6] The Samaritan knows this by faith and his faith guides his actions. Better to be in the presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus than to spend a thousand days anywhere else.

Last Sunday, Jesus identified Himself as a Samaritan, as the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans and the Israelites were once the same people. But 700 or so years before the birth of Jesus, the Assyrians invaded Israel and cast many of the northern tribes into exile.[7] The Assyrians then imported hundreds of foreigners into the region and these intermarried with the native Israelites. Soon, the importation of foreigners led to a mixing not only of peoples but of religion. It began as continued worship of their foreign, pagan gods but soon this worship was placed on top of the worship of the true God. The Samaritans are the result of this mixing. They accepted the first five books of the bible but rejected all others. They centered their worship on Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem.

Once the Kingdom of Judah returned from exile in Babylon, the tide turned, and the Judeans began to persecute the Samaritans. In 172 BC, the Judeans destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. There are hundreds of years of bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans are mixed blood heretics in the eyes of the Judeans. By the time of our text, the Samaritans are a tiny community, barely hanging on to existence.

And yet it is a Samaritan who can recognize the Messiah. It is a Samaritan who sees the True God in the flesh and knows to worship Him. It is a Samaritan to whom our Lord compares Himself in the parable of last week.

The Pharisees, and by consequence the most people living in the Near East, considered leprosy to be the consequence of sin. Since leprosy can refer to several different diseases in the Bible, it is entirely possible that in some cases it is the result of sin. There are actions and behaviors that lead directly to life altering diseases. At the same time, there are some who contract these diseases by chance. They have done nothing wrong. As they ask Jesus regarding the blind man, “Whose sin caused this disease, this man’s or his parents?’”

In either case, whether one’s behavior causes the disease or one is simply a victim of the disease, the Christian response is (in the first place) the same: repentance. In falling on is face before the feet of Jesus, the Samaritan is doing exactly that. He is glorifying God by recognizing his own unworthiness. “Lord, Jesus Christ, thank you for having had mercy upon me, a sinner!”

This is how we know that the Samaritan gave thanks to God for His perpetual propitiation. The Samaritan recognizes his sorry state. It was plainly obvious in his condition! The wrath of God was seen in the oozing sores of his flesh, a constant and painful reminder of his sin. This man, as all men, was in need of the mercy of God, something that could only be achieved through reconciliation with the Father.

And how might the wrath of God be satisfied? How might the anger of God be turned away from the Samaritan? The breaking of the Body and shedding of the Blood of Jesus. The very same Body and Blood which still effects your salvation. You are in every bit as much need of salvation as the Samaritan with oozing sores. Your sins are more hidden; the effects of your sins are likely more secret. But they are just as deadly as the Samaritan’s disease. The remedy is repentance, acknowledgment of your sins and an appeal to God for His mercy, which He has promised to all who believe, all who are baptized, all who trust in the saving Blood of Jesus.

Now, when I said that repentance was the Christian response to sin, whether sin suffered or sin outwardly committed, I said this response was the same in the first place. That is because a sin which is suffered must be responded to with repentance and faith. However, a sin that is outwardly committed must likewise be met with repentance and faith but also the fruits of repentance, namely, the putting away of that sin. After being healed and falling at the feet of Jesus, the Samaritan is not free to return to worshiping on Mount Gerizim. He is not free to return to rejecting all but the first five books of Moses. His freedom is now found in Jesus Christ. His freedom is from the sins which burdened him. He is now free to live as a child of the Heavenly Father, a child according to promise.

The Samaritan was a heretic by birth. He did not worship the True God from his youth. He worshiped a false god who went by the same name. He did not worship in truth and sincerity. But the presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus, the healing of this man’s body and soul, turns his worship toward that True God. He is turned by the words of Jesus to worship in truth and sincerity. He knows where salvation is to be found. If someone asked him the meaning of Isaiah 53, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…”[8] the Samaritan is unlikely to have an answer. But he gets it. He knows where salvation is to be found. He knows Jesus is the great high priest and salvation is found in His body alone.

Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual propitiation; and because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable for our salvation; through the Holy Body and Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who livest and reignest with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] The change in this collect was brought to my attention via Rev. William Weedon’s blog post at https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/2020/9/13/thoughts-on-the-collect-trinity-xiv?rq=Trinity%20XIV.

[2] Hebrews 2:17.

[3] Psalm 118.

[4] Hebrews 7:24-25; 9:11-15.

[5] St. Matthew 28:5.

[6] Psalm 84:10.

[7] 2 Kings 17.

[8] Isaiah 53:5.

The Great Vigil of Easter

The Great Vigil of Easter – March 30, 2024

Genesis 1:1-3:24; Genesis 7:1-9:17; Exodus 14:10-15:1; Daniel 3:1-30

St. Matthew 28:1-7

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Why put in the effort tonight? Why all the ceremonies, long readings, and prayers? It is because tonight we celebrate the heart of our faith. Each prayer is an earnest plea to God for rescue from temptation, sin, and death. Each ceremony is a physical manifestation of that faith, handed down from our forefathers to teach our bodies what it means to confess Jesus Christ as Savior. Each reading focuses our hearts and minds on the singular focus of all Scripture – the salvation of man found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is no room this night for nostalgia, theatrics, or performance. On this most Holy Night, we celebrate the victory of our King. We celebrate His bursting from the bonds of death. We celebrate His victory because it is our victory. It is our victory over temptation, sin, and death.

It is too easy to let phrases like “He is risen!” or “Christ is King” become statements of historic fact or expressions of joyous sentiment unconnected to the Person of Jesus Christ and without impact on your person. The proclamation that Christ is risen means that He was dead. It means that He died for the sins of the world but more importantly, for your sins. Yes, He died for original sin but He also died for the sins you committed this morning, this afternoon, even those you’ve committed since the beginning of this service.

It is a historic fact that Jesus rose from the grave 2000 years ago, but it is far more important that this resurrection brought life to you. He is risen and that means that your sins, which He carried into the grave, remain buried in the tomb. It means that your sins are buried in the earth, never to rise. He is risen and that means that you, too, will rise with Him. You have already risen with Him in the waters of Holy Baptism. You have arisen a new Creation, a new creature, born from above and made in the image of Christ’s righteousness.

It is also a fact that Jesus Christ is King. St. John’s Gospel, especially the Passion as read yesterday in the Chief Service, emphasizes this fact. Again and again, Pilate questions Jesus’ regarding His kingship and never once does Jesus deny being King. But as a historic fact, this is little more important than the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, or Washington crossed the Delaware. These events matter in the course of the world but mean nothing in heaven. When the world is destroyed on the last day, these events will lose all meaning.

It is an entirely different statement to say that Christ is your king. A king is not elected or chosen by his subjects. A king is not under constant threat of deposition by the will of the people. A King is sovereign. A King governs by His will and by His right. Christ is King because He holds all creation in His hands. He is King because He is the very Word by which Creation came to be. And He is your King.

He is your King because He is on your side. He is your King because He has chosen you to be His subject. He is not a King who leads from the rear. He is a King who commands His people to stand in safety while He faces our foes. He is like David, who marches by himself to fight Goliath, the terror of the Israelites and soldier of Satan. Unlike David, your King must lose His life to win the war. Unlike David, your King faced not just the soldiers and power of Satan, but the Adversary himself. And your King won.

The implication for you is that Satan has no power over you. You belong to the King of kings, not to the Ancient Dragon. Temptation, sin, and death constantly seek your life, but your King has ensured victory over them. Should you fall for their lies, you have a King who is strong to save, who has already, before you could fall to sin, devoured your sin in the grave. You are His and He will never leave you, nor forsake you. You are His and His is the victory.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

 The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity – September 19, 2021

Psalm 86; 1 Kings 17:17-24; Ephesians 3:13-21

St. Luke 7:11-17

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The day after preaching on the plain and healing a centurion’s beloved servant, Jesus went to a town called Nain. He was followed by his disciples and a large crowd, for word of his teaching and miracles was beginning to spread. As he approached the gate of the town, our Lord is met by a funeral procession. The only-begotten son of a widow has tragically died. The boy was barely old enough to be called a man. The widow wept loudly and a large crowd followed in her sorrow. The mourners close at hand, the pallbearers marched slowly out of the town to bury the boy.

Upon seeing the woman, Christ has compassion upon her and tells her to stop weeping. Upon touching the funeral bier, the open coffin, everyone stops. The pallbearers freeze, almost as though they are dead where they stand. Christ then utters his second command, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” Immediately the boy sits up and begins to speak, presumably speaking glory of God and blessing the name of the Messiah. In one of the most tender gestures in all of Scripture, Jesus takes the boy by the hand, helps him down, and presents the now living boy to his mother.

Then everyone in the crowd was seized by fear and began to glorify God saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us,” and “God has visited His people.” The report of this resurrection then spread throughout all Judea and the surrounding lands.[1]

Three times our Lord is recorded to have raised someone visibly from the dead. It is possible he raised many more that were not recorded. It is also entirely possible that this boy, Jairus’s daughter, and Lazarus were the only three souls to be reunited with their bodies during the ministry of the Christ. The important question is not how many, but why these three? St. John tells us “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”[2]

These three were raised to teach you something about Jesus – that he is the Christ, the Son of God – and that by believing you may have life in his Name. How then does this resurrection teach us about the Christ?

First, this miracle is a prophecy of Christ’s own death and resurrection. The boy is carried outside the city in death, just as Christ himself will be given over to death and crucified outside of the city of Jerusalem.

The boy is the only-begotten son of a widowed mother. Jesus is the Christ, the only-begotten Son of God the Father and the son of a widowed mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Upon seeing the widow of Nain, Jesus has compassion on her. At his own death, Jesus looks with compassion upon his own widowed mother, commending her into the care of St. John.

The boy is carried upon an open casket, a funeral bier, for all to see his lifeless body. Christ our Lord would hang upon a cross in full view, for all to see his body as he breathed his last.

When the miracle is performed, the pall bearers, the guardians of the body in a funeral procession, are made to stand perfectly still, almost as corpses themselves. On Easter morning, as the women arrive at the tomb, the guards stationed by the Pharisees shake for fear and fall down as dead men.[3]

Then there is an important difference. The boy’s funeral procession is stopped, and Christ touches the bier. Speaking to the boy, he is raised from the dead and Christ presents the now living boy to his mother. In Christ’s own death, he is taken down from the cross and presented to his mother a lifeless corpse. This is the most important comparison between these resurrections.

In touching the funeral bier, Jesus made himself unclean. He touched the death of the boy and took it upon himself. The clean white robe of Christ wiped the filth of death from the boy’s forehead – cleaning the boy and soiling Christ. We can see very clearly that Christ gave his life to the boy and took the boy’s death upon himself. Jesus took the place of the boy in the grave so that the boy could take his place in the arms of his mother.

The second teaching of this miracle concerns a false understanding of death and resurrection. When Jesus traveled to Bethany to mourn the death of Lazarus, he is met outside the city by Martha, one of Lazarus’s sisters. Martha confesses that had Jesus been there, Lazarus would not have died, and yet she retains faith that the Father will do whatever Jesus asks. Jesus responds, “Your brother will rise again,” to which Marth confesses, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus gently corrects her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”[4]

When someone we love falls asleep in death, we are tempted to think like Martha. We know our beloved, our friend, our father will rise on the last day and that is our only comfort. But that is not true of the Baptized. Those who believe in Christ shall never die. Our death was in the waters of Holy Baptism. We were drowned in that saving flood. We come to the waters of Holy Baptism as sinful creatures, less than human, turned away from God. In judgment, the Lord drowns us, just as he drowned the unbelieving multitudes in Noah’s day and swallowed hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his mighty host in the Red Sea. Sinful man has no hope of escaping the waters of Holy Baptism. He is drowned to the depths and cannot recover. His funeral procession will stop for nothing.

Thanks be to God our funeral processions are stopped by the Light of Christ. The Only-Begotten Son of God reaches out and pulls us forth from the water. Our filth of death is left behind and we are raised to a new life in Christ. Death no longer has a claim to us. Those who fall asleep in Christ have already died – on the day of their Holy Baptism.[5] Baptism now saves you.[6] It makes you a child of the Heavenly Father and heir of heaven with Christ. You are fully human, restored to a right relationship with Christ and presented to your mother, the Church.

When we bring a child to the font, the procession is interrupted by the waters of Holy Baptism, just as a funeral procession is interrupted by the Paschal Candle. Both stand in the place of Christ, who freezes the funeral procession of Nain, stopping death in its tracks.

Why then must the Christian suffer temporal death? Sin is still at work in our members. The wages of sin must still be paid by our flesh and yet, as Jesus says, “even though he dies, he shall live. Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Those who die in Christ are still living, for our God is the God of the living, not the dead. All who believe and are baptized died in the waters of baptism. Temporal death is now the victory over sin. Even as sin must finish its course of decay in the flesh, the Christian is alive and free from the chains of sin. He now enjoys eternal, sinless life.

Do not weep inconsolably over the death of a Christian. Weep with tears of joy and sadness for the separation you must endure. But know that Christ has compassion on you. When Jesus came to Nain, he did not resurrect the boy out of compassion for him. Jesus had compassion on the mother, the bereaved. The miracle of the resurrection was for the sake of the comfort of the widowed mother.

Tears at the temporal death of a Christian are a confession of sorrow over sin and a longing for eternal life. Christ himself cried at the death of Lazarus. Yet weeping and wailing are a confession of death, the end of life, something unknown to the Christian. We know that the body of the departed will rest in peaceful sleep, even as it awaits the resurrection, to be reunited with the already living soul for all eternity.

Finally, know that this resurrection of the boy at Nain is consolation for the living, as well as the bereaved. If Christ took on the death of the boy, he has certainly taken on your death. Jesus took the sins of the world upon his shoulders, standing in the place of mankind from Adam to the last baby born. His death swallowed the death of all, including you.

You were conceived in sin and born in iniquity. Since Adam, all mankind has been carried out of the heavenly Jerusalem to be buried outside the gates. The pallbearers of sin, temptation, Satan, and our flesh have processed to the grave every hour of our lives. But the Son of God would not have it. He halts the procession and reaches out to touch our sinful filth. He drowns our sin and washes us clean. Even then, he does not leave us alone. He presents us to our mother, the Church, who will continue to care for us even as we grow in the faith. As we age in knowledge and wisdom of Christ, we too come to care for the Church.

There came a day when the widow’s son once again fell asleep in Christ. He presently enjoys the nearer company of Christ, awaiting the day when he will be reunited with his body. So too, we who enjoy life in the Church await the return of Christ look forward not to our rest in the grave, but the coming of our Lord. We, who are held in the arms of Mother Church, look for the triumphal return of Christ, who will lead us into the heavenly Jerusalem through the gate of pearl.

In + Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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[1] A summary of St. Luke 7:11-17.

[2] St. John 20:30-31.

[3] St. Matthew 28:4.

[4] A summary of St. John 11:17-27.

[5] Romans 6:3-4.

[6] 1 Peter 3:21.