✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
John 8,[21-26a] 26b-30 1513
Reminiszere (2. Sonntag der Passionszeit) 025 „Remember“
Matthias, Apostle. Martyr at Jerusalem or Colchis, Georgia 80
24. February 2013
1. O Heavenly Father, You gave us Your Holy Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, Your only and beloved Son, who paid for our sins on the cross. Your Church is tempted to usurp the vineyard from You and plant her own doctrine and practice that is centered on man rather than the Triune God. Send forth pastors to be prophets in Your Church who will call to repentance the Church and all Christians who have strayed from Your word and will. Bring them again with penitent hearts to be steadfast in the faith and to embrace the unchangeable truth of Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.
2. So Jesus again said to the scribes and the Pharisees: „I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.“ So the Jews said: „Will he kill himself, since he says: „Where I am going, you cannot come“?“ He said to them: „You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He you will die in your sins.“ So they said to Him: „Who are you?“ Jesus said to them: „Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but He who sent Me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from Him.“ They did not understand that He had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them: „When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority, but speak just as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.“ As He was saying these things, many believed in Him.
3. The Apostle Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans: »So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ« (Romans 10,17). As John tells us in his Gospel: the word of Christ comes from the Father, for Jesus heard His word in heaven. Jesus spoke to the scribes and Pharisees the word of the Father. The Jews should have heard these words, recognized that these words were in conformity with the Sinai covenant and thus believed Jesus to be the very Word of the Father who was sent by the Father.
4. On the contrary, the scribes and Pharisees were the most vehement of Jesus’ foes. Most of them refused to accept Jesus as the Christ. This refusal was also a rejection of God the Father and the Holy Scriptures.
5. The Law and the Prophets prepared Israel for their Christ. The Epistle to the Hebrews explains how the old testament foreshadows the Christ. »They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, he was instructed by God, saying: »See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.« But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the testament He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. In speaking of a new testament, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away« (Hebrews 8,5-6.13). »For since the Law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near« (Hebrews 10,1).
6. Jesus furthermore says that there is a sign that bespeaks of all this: the crucified Christ is the wondrous sign that the old has been fulfilled by the new testament. Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees: »When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority, but speak just as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me.« The Apostle Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Corinthians that: »Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God« (1. Corinthians 1,22-24). If you demand a sign, if you seek wisdom, then the crucified Christ is both your sign and your wisdom.
7. The cross is the sign of Yahweh’s love, mercy and grace upon His fallen, sinful creation. »There is no greater love than that of a man laying down his life for his friends« (John 15,13). This is why Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and a cross of ashes marked upon our foreheads. God the Father’s love is manifested in the act of sending His Only Son to this earth to suffer and die for you and me who are rebellious sinners. The ash cross on our foreheads reminds us that we are marked by the Triune God in our Holy Baptism. We are marked as those redeemed in the waters of Baptismal life, and those waters are efficacious by Jesus’ meritorious sacrifice upon the cross.
8. Jesus paid the price for all the world. He died to save the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees who rejected their very Holy Scriptures, the Greeks proud of their philosophical wisdom, the Romans who took solace in their laws and orderly society and in us with whatever attitude we exaggerate to sinful proportions. The world has been saved. All sinners have been ransomed. The devil, the grave and hell have been defeated. The sign for all this is the cross, and this cross is the wisdom that leads unto everlasting life. Faith receives this sign and believes this wisdom.
9. Jesus reminded the scribes and the Pharisees: »I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He you will die in your sins.« Jesus speaks these words to each of us, too. If you refuse to receive Jesus and thereby believe His words, then you will likewise die in your sins. These are harsh words to hear. These are politically incorrect words. These are words that grate against our postmodern ideal of multiculturalism. But Jesus has spoken these words, put them out there as the Truth, and each man and woman either receives them or refuses them. The Church proclaims that there is only one path that leads unto the open gates of eternal life in heaven. The Church preaches that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to God the Father except through Jesus who is crucified and risen for our salvation (John 14,6).
10. The Apostle Paul proclaims: »God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us« (Romans 5,8). The scribes and Pharisees believed that if they lived a righteous life under the law, then Yahweh would send His Christ. They had developed a meritorious system based on works-righteousness. As such, we are no different from the Pharisees. Christians also wrongly establish merit based on works-righteousness, too. We think if we live a better moral life, try to obey the commandments better or some other works-based system of righteousness by which we hope to merit Yahweh’s good favor and blessings.
11. Jesus says: »Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: »I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.« For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners« (Matthew 9,12-13). We do not come into Jesus’ presence as healthy righteous people but as dying sinners. Jesus gathers those who are sick and dying, those who are depressed and in despair, those who are cast aside by the world, those who have nothing to offer Him of any value. To such a pitiful lot, Jesus cleans away our sin, binds up our wounds of body and soul, gives us the medicine of His Word and Sacraments, takes us into His presence and declares us righteous on His account.
12. Now that Jesus has made us righteous by His meritorious sacrifice upon the cross, He sends the Holy Spirit to work in us the good works that are the result of declared righteousness. The Spirit uses the gospel to create in us love for God and neighbor. From this love springs forth all sorts of fruits that benefit our church and our community. So we proclaim the sacrificial love of Christ; we work and support our church with liberal offerings and time. Such sanctified activities flow forth from faith in our Merciful Christ Jesus who is the sinner’s friend and the sinner’s deliverer, now and always. Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, You show His love for us in that Jesus Christ died for us while we were still sinners, may we never stumble over this proclamation nor reject this great gift of grace so that we may remain in the Christian faith unto eternal life. 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.
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