✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ
Psalm 84,5.6a.7.11; Isaiah 66,10.11 1917
Lätare (4. Sonntag der Passionszeit) 027 „Rejoice“
Ludger, Bishop of Münster, Germany, ✠ 809
26. März 2017
1. О Lord Jesus Christ, whose delight is the house of the Lord; bring peace both to our world and Your Church, so that we may live and work in security in the security that we may worship You without fear or coercion. Amen. (Gradual)
2. Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; so that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; so that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance. Blessed are those whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
3. »Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her;«. Thus begins Laetare’s Introit, and it coincides nicely with what Jesus told His disciples during Holy Week: »Where I am, there will My servant be also« (John 12,26). Jesus spent much of His time during Holy Week in the temple courtyard where He taught His disciples and the crowds who arrived for the Passover celebration. Jerusalem was the religious capital of Judaism because the temple with its animal sacrifices was located there. Jesus both rejoiced and wept over Jerusalem. At 12 years of age, Jesus was in the temple listening to the rabbis, scribes and Pharisees teach the Scriptures, and also asking them questions (Luke 2,46). Eighteen years later, however, Jesus wept over Jerusalem because the city did not know the things that make for peace, and that winds of war with Rome were beginning to stir before the city (Luke 19,41-44). The joy of Jerusalem and the thing that makes for peace in her midst is Jesus Christ Himself.
4. The, Introit then exhorts us »so that you may nurse and be satisfied from Jerusalem’s consoling breast; so that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.« The Psalmist encourages us to look to Jerusalem where the Scriptures are taught and the sacrifice for sin is made. Jesus is the Very Word of God made flesh and the Sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the proper teacher of Holy Scripture and the once-for-all sacrifice that forgives all sins. The Psalmist proclaims: »Your Word is a Lamp to my feet and a Light upon my path« (Psalm 119,105).
5. »Blessed are those whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs« In Jesus’ day, Jerusalem was the capital of Judaism and the temple was built on its Mt. Zion. The Lord met mankind at Zion and there He forgave his sin. In Holy Week, Jesus told His apostles: »The hour has arrived for the Son of Man to be glorified« (John 12,23). His glorification would take place outside the city gates of Zion.
6. »They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.« In Jesus’ day, Jews went to Zion primarily to offer a sacrifice. They travelled up to Zion for this ritual all the way back to King David’s reign a millennia earlier. Men would present an animal to be sacrificed so their sins and their family’s would be atoned for. Every day such sacrifices occurred; and every year on Yom Kippur the sins of the nation were absolved. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: »This Mosaic law was but a shadow of the good things to arrive 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. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ arrived in the world, He said: Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have You prepared for Me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said: Behold, I have arrived to do Your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book. [Psalm 40,6-8]. When He said above You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings (these are offered according to the law), then He added: Behold, I have arrived to do Your will. He does away with the first testament in order to establish the new testament. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all« (Hebrews 10,1-10). The new testament sacrifice of Jesus on the cross outside of Mt. Zion has fulfilled the old testament sacrifices that were performed daily at the temple.
7. »For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.« The Prophet Malachi says the Christ will be »the Sun of Righteousness who shall rise with healing in His wings« (Malachi 4,2), and the Psalmist reminds us that »The Christ is our Shield in whom we trust and are helped« (Psalm 28,7). All favor and honor is bestowed upon us through Christ Jesus. He is the fulfillment of His Father’s promise to save fallen mankind. He is the vicarious sacrifice for our sin. The Greeks sought Him because He is the Light who enlightens the Gentiles, for He is the Jews’ Messiah and the Gentiles’ Christ. He gave up His life in this world in order to obtain eternal life for us all.
8. Thus the theme of Laetare is: rejoice! On this Sunday we cross the midway point of Lent (the Ides of Lent) and today is a day of hope for Easter is within our sight. The Psalmist reminds us today: Jesus is the certainty of our salvation. Our sins have been paid for and forgiven. We have been redeemed back to our Heavenly Father’s good graces. We are now righteous in His eyes. All this is from Jesus who is our Bright Morning Star. He bestows upon us favor and honor. We are enlightened with His grace and glory unto life everlasting. Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Christ, Thou grain of wheat who fell into the earth and died; we rejoice in the light of Your resurrection for You who had died later rose to life so that we may also be fruits of the harvest of eternal life. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.
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