He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
This year during the season of Lent through to Easter Sunrise and Easter morning we are continuing our celebration of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation as we did at Advent through Christmas. During Lent through Easter we are covering what is considered the most important doctrine of the Church and the Lutheran Church, Article IV of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Article IV is the article on Justification and how we are made just and right in God’s eyes. Indeed, this article is the article on which the Church stands or falls, because we are saved either by ourselves, our good deeds, our obedience, and so forth or our salvation comes from outside of us, namely it comes from Jesus, who has earned and paid for our sins by His suffering and death and the cross and which He gives freely to us with out any merit or worthiness within us.
As you hear me say, we get it right when we point to Jesus. All history focuses on Jesus. From the designation before Christ, B.C. to the designation anno domino or what is often called after death, A.D., even to the more secular modern designation common era, C.E., and before the common era, B.C.E., no matter what the designation the focal point is Jesus. The time of the Old Testament is counted backward until it reaches zero and then counts forward until we reach this current year, 2018. No matter the designation the focal point is the time of Jesus.
All Scripture focuses on Jesus. The Old Testament, especially the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament point to Jesus. The history and all the books of the Old Testament bring us to about 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The New Testament points to Jesus. All the books of the New Testament speak of the history and teachings of Jesus. Genesis records the account of God’s creation. Revelation points us to our reward of eternity in heaven because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
How can we come to any other conclusion in this world of history and God’s Word except that all history and all Scripture points us to Jesus. Jesus is the focal point of all history and Scripture. And rightly He should be as He is God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.
God is omniscient that is God knows all things. Please understand that this omniscience does not mean that God predetermines all things. There is a distinct difference between foreknowledge, omniscience and predestination or preordination, destiny or fate if you will. Just because God knows something before it happens does not mean that God intends or necessarily makes something happen. Simply stated, God is omniscient.
In His omniscience, God knew what was going to happen before He began creation. We might best understand this concept by remembering that God lives in the eternal present. For God there is no yesterday, no today and no tomorrow. God lives outside of time. He created time for us. You might think about it as spinning a globe and then stopping it. For the globe people a lot of time seems to have quickly spun past, but for you, outside of that time, nothing happened. Anyway, in His omniscience, God knew what was going to happen even before He began creating the world.
God knew that Adam and Eve would fall for the lies of Satan. He knew they would disobey His command and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil of which He told them not to eat. He knew they would sin. And He knew He would have to fix their problem. God knew all this was going to happen even before He began creation. And yet in His great love for us, He created us anyway.
In His omniscience God knew all that would happen and in His love He created the world anyway and in His creating He created a plan whereby He would rescue His creation bringing us back into a right relationship with Himself, justifying us in other words. God worked through time, the time He gave to us, to bring about our salvation. God knew what had to happen and at just the right time He put His plan into action. And as we know the rest of the history, His plan did work and we have been saved, rescued, redeemed.
What does this mean? First we need to understand our purpose. Unfortunately there are many in our world today that would propose a purpose other than God’s true purpose. Some will point you to yourself and express the idea that your purpose is to live for God, to work for God, to do something for or offer something to God, as if God needs something from us. Why do parents have children? So the children can serve them? I think not. God created us to love us. Plan and simple, God created you to love you. God created all things out of nothing. He has given us all that we need in this world, what on earth would the one who created all and gives all need from us, the ones He has created and to whom He has given?
God created us to love us and God created us to give to us. He gives us all that we need to support our body and life, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, and on and on. He gives us our most important spiritual blessings as well, faith, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. All that we have is gift from our gift giving God.
Our purpose in life is to be loved by God. And we fulfill that purpose by being by God, by being where He gives out His love, in Divine Service. By being where He distributes His love, at His Holy Supper. By remembering His gifts, by being mindful of our Baptism. By being given forgiveness, through confession and absolution. By being filled with Him through reading His Word. By being in conversation with Him, listening to Him speak in His Word and speaking back to Him in prayer.
God gives and we are given to. God gives and stirs and moves in us our response to all His good gifts and blessings. Indeed, how can we not respond to all that our Lord does for us and gives to us. In the Garden of Eden, since Adam and Eve had nothing, but since all was supplied by God, He gave for them to obey His one command, to not eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. As we know they failed. Indeed, that may be an indication of our nature yet today. God gives to us and more often than not we fail as well. We fail to be in Divine Service. We fail to read His Word. We fail to remember our Baptism. We fail to confess our sins and hear His Word of Absolution. We fail and God knew we would and that is why He continues to offer and give to us.
Our response of faith and the gifts of God, our response to God loving us is to be loved by God and we are loved by God as we are in the Word. Indeed, God showers us with His love as we hear and read His Word, because His Word is a Word with power to do what it says and to give the gifts of which it speaks.
Our response of faith and the gifts of God, our response to God loving us is to be loved by God and we are loved by God as remember our Baptism. We do not need to be baptized more than once because God got it right the first time, as He proclaims, Baptism now saves you. At the same time, each and every day, perhaps as we wash our face or have water shower on us we might be reminded of the waters of Holy Baptism, God’s putting His name on us, God choosing us and making us His own, even writing our names in the book of heaven.
Our response of faith and the gifts of God, our response to God loving us is to be loved by God and we are loved by God as we confess our sins and hear His word that our sins have been forgiven. As we daily sin much and are in need of forgiveness so we confess daily and even more, we come to the Lord’s house every week and confess our sins so that we might hear the Word of God through the mouth of the Pastor proclaiming that our sins are forgiven. And should we need, we may come privately to our pastor and hear God’s word of forgiveness. And we know that as we hear those words of forgiveness here on earth, they are just as true in heaven.
Our response of faith and the gifts of God, our response to God loving us is to be loved by God and we are loved by God as we partake of His body and blood thus participating with in Him in His life, suffering, death and resurrection. Just as the Old Testament people ate the sacrifice so that it became a part of them, so too do we eat Jesus’ body and drink His blood so that it becomes a real part of us, not symbolic, not spiritual, but a real part of us.
Our response of faith and the gifts of God, our response to God loving us is to be loved by God and we are loved by God as we live lives of faith, that is as we are priest in the priesthood of all believers. Remember, the role of the priest was to offer sacrifices, which pointed to Jesus. We no longer are required to offer sacrifices today and yet we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, living lives of faith always being ready to give an answer for the hope that we have in Jesus.
Today is a most special day of celebration. Today we celebrate that Jesus has taken care of our sins, the cost and price, the wage of our sin, death and hell. We celebrate that Jesus defeated sin, death and the devil so that they have no power over us. We celebrate that He created us to love us and we see His love in the ultimate sacrifice of Himself on the cross. We celebrate that He continues to love us and offer to us His many good gifts and blessings. We celebrate forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. We celebrate and say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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