✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
1. John 1,5-2,6 3612
3. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 048
The Eve of the Nativity of John the Baptizer
24. June 2012
1. O Lord Jesus Christ, it is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that You came into the world to save sinners. You desire that no one, yes, no one, be lost. There is not a single soul in the whole wide world whom You did not love and carry upon Your heart. From all eternity You had thoughts of grace toward every human being. By Your life and suffering, by Your bleeding and dying on the cross You reconciled every person to Your Father, redeemed them from all sins and won for them grace, righteousness, life and salvation. Therefore You have also given the command to go out into all the world and preach the gospel, the glad tidings of Your grace and reconciliation, to every creature. O Holy Spirit, embolden Your dear Church! Fill her with ardent love for those who are still without God and without hope in this world. Grant unto Your Church that through her the gospel may be brought into all foreign lands and convert unto faith Christ Jesus. Arise, O Lord, to rescue those who are lost. Amen.
2. This is the message we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says: „I know Him“ but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.
3. The Apostle John uses the word „propitiation“ in his epistle which serves as our sermon text for this morning. Propitiation is not a word commonly heard in the Church today, but it is a vitally important word in the life of the Church. To propitiate means to bring forgiveness or to have mercy.
4. John writes that there is light and darkness. God is light. Sinners are darkness. The two cannot coexist. Light always drives out the darkness, and likewise God’s holy presence drives wicked sinners away because there is no darkness in God. The vast majority of the world is content to ignore this simple truth. Ask the average person about God and sinners and you will hear answers such as „God is love“ or „God welcomes sinners“, but press them as to why God is love or why God welcomes sinners and it is like looking at a deer caught in the car headlights.
5. You see, by and large, the world is indifferent to sin and wickedness. At worst mankind is morally neutral and we just need a little extra boost from God and His grace to put us into the good column. The world does not understand that God hates sin and God hates sinners. Many Christians do not understand this either. We want to have a sugar-coated God of generic love, and then we are happy and content to carry on with our lives.
6. The holy apostle reminds us this morning that you, me and the entire world are sinners. If we deny this fact, then we are deceiving ourselves and do not have the Truth within us. If God hates sin, and we are sinners, then it follows that God must hate the sinner. The wicked rightly deserve death and hell, we reason, and thus so do we all, for we are all wicked sinners before God.
7. This is where the word „propitiation“ comes into play in God’s Heilsgeschichte (salvation history). Although God hates sin and the rebellious sinner, and in His holy justice must punish sin and condemn sinners, God is a God of love who does not want to damn His creation to perdition. God, however, in His holiness and righteousness cannot just overlook mankind’s sin. Sin must be atoned for and the sinner must be punished. A propitiator is one who appeases God through a sacrifice, and one who atones for our sins by sacrificing Himself. John proclaims that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for all sinners, yes for the entire world. Therefore, God sent His Son to atone for sin, Himself being the sacrifice to bear all sin’s awful load. Jesus became the Chief Sinner on the cross, and by becoming the Sinner who bears the sin of the world, He bore our just punishment and condemnation in our place. Jesus has atoned for sin, paid the ransom price and has merited the forgiveness of sin.
8. On account of Jesus we can now boldly say and proclaim that „God is love“ and „God welcomes sinners“. Jesus is righteous and by His merit He exchanges our unrighteousness with His righteousness. the result of his blessed exchange is explored in Nikolaus Zinzendorf’s hymn Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness: „Bold will I stand in that great day, Cleansed and redeemed, no debt to pay; Fully absolved through these I am From sin and fear, from guilt and shame“ (LSB 563.2).
9. Now that Christ has become our propitiation, we ought to walk according to His law for to know Christ is to keep His commandments. Jesus summarized His Ten Commandments as love God and love your neighbor.
10. Bear good works in keeping with the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. Worship the Triune God. Pray to Him. Read His Word, and regularly hear it preached and taught on Sunday morning. Give tithes, offerings and service to your church. In these ways you begin to show your love for God.
11. Share with your neighbors. If your neighbor is in need, then help him out. Speak kindly of your neighbors. Help them to upkeep their property. Defend their honor, reputation and good name. In these ways you begin to show your love for your neighbor.
12. The Holy Spirit desires to perfect His love in you. His law shows how you can love God and your neighbor, but His gospel gives you the power and ability to actually love. The gospel creates faith, and faith bears the fruit of good works for the neighbor.
13. We need the power of the gospel to motivate us to love, for many times our neighbors aren’t the most congenial people. We would rather not help our neighbor who is a thorn in our side, preferring instead to focus our attention on the neighbors who are nice to us.
14. In this morning’s Gospel Reading, St. Luke the Evangelist tells us: »Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying: „This man receives sinners and eats with them.“« (Luke 15,1-2). „Today Jesus is the guest with a different set of people. These are the riffraff, the poor, the despised. The sort of people you wouldn’t want to be associated with if you valued what people might say. Their lives hadn’t turned out so well“ (Nagel 167). And the religious people, those who had a comfortable life, who followed Yahweh’s law, the scribes and the Pharisees, let Jesus know that it was simply improper and unacceptable for Him, a man of God and His law, a rabbi no less, to be seen in the company of the despised, the tax collectors, the prostitutes and the publicans. O the scandal!
15. You have neighbors who are put in those categories. Perhaps you yourself label them as such. Are not these the despised of our borough who think they don’t have a friend in the world? These are the neighbors Jesus wants us to help and have in our company. They need our love just as surely as the sinners did in Luke 15. „God’s business is bringing and keeping and lost sheep close to Himself that they may be forgiven and have the achievement and joy that God wants them to have. Jesus came to give all that to us“ (Nagel 167).
16. The 20. century Lutheran and theologian Dietrich Bonhöffer spoke and wrote about the costly grace of God. Divine grace is costly because Jesus paid with His own blood and life to redeem the world back to His Heavenly Father. In Christ we see true love of God and the neighbor, a love that will sacrifice all in order to show the world the depths of Gods love to His wicked, sinful neighbors. Christ’s costly grace also may exact a high toll from each one of us. That is the way of grace and love, for they know no bounds in serving the neighbor. Such is the love that Jesus calls upon us to show God and our neighbors, a love that knows no bounds and no excuses. In the case of Bonhöffer it meant that he had to stand up and say „no“ to his Führer who sought to rid Germany of the riffraff and undesirables: his political adversaries, those who were homosexual, the gypsies, the Jews, even the Christians who said „no“ to the work camps and the genocide. Bonhöffer was executed for his crimes against the State, but he died knowing that his love for the neighbor trumped the despotic wishes of Hitler.
17. What will Divine grace demand of you? It may be a little or it may be much, but know that Christ paid the highest cost to bring you His love. The gospel will enable you to bear whatever cost grace demands from you as you love both God and your neighbor, for God’s grace is sufficient for you in all things. Amen.
18. Let us pray. O Merciful, Gracious Lord, You are slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness, instill in us the great joy of our salvation so that we are assured of that if we become lost, we are comforted that You seek us out, find us, and return us unto Your holy Church. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 1549 Cambridge University Press.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Nagel, Norman. Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis. Frederick W. Baue, Ed. Copyright © 2004 Concordia Publishing House.
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