Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church
9 E Homestead Ave. Palisades Park, NJ 07650 201-944-2107 Sundays 11:00 a.m. We preach Christ crucified (1. Corinthians 1,23)

Saturday, January 20, 2018

1. Corinthians 2,1-10. 2. Sunday after Epiphany

One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

1. Corinthians 2,1-10 0818
2. Sonntag nach Epiphanias  015
Felix of Nola, Italy. Pastor, Confessor, 256 
14. Januar 2018 

1. О God, there is forgiveness with You, exhort is to seek forgiveness with You through Christ Jesus, so that we have the peace and assurance that the record of our guilt has been blotted out.  Amen. (Starck 67) 
2. And I, when I arrived, brothers, did not arrive proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him (Isaiah 64,4) — these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.  
3. We might presume from the Apostle Paul’s Statement to the Corinthians: »When I arrived, I did not arrive proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom« to mean Paul was uneducated. On the contrary, Paul was a well-educated man. He was a Jew and also a Roman citizen. He writes in his Epistle to the Philippians: »I was circumcised on the 8. day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to righteousness under the law, blameless« (Philippians 3,4-7). He was the son of  Pharisees (Acts 23,6), he was raised in Jerusalem and studied under Gamaliel (Acts 22,3), advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries (Galatians 1,14). Gamaliel was the most renowned and educated Pharisee in Paul’s day (Acts 5,34). He later tells the tribune that he was born in Tarsus and that his father was a Roman citizen, thus, Paul was a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22,25-29). Paul was fluent in Hebrew and Greek, most likely fluent in Latin too. He was a master of the Holy Scriptures and knowledgeable of Greek philosophers and poets, particularly the Stoics (Acts Acts 17,16-24). So Paul could engage in lofty speech and wisdom  if he so chose to do. 
4. But he makes a point to the Corinthians that he did not employ this method when he preached to them. Rather, he decided to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified so that their faith might rest on the power of God and no on the wisdom of men. Paul’s simple and straight forward proclamation is a stumbling block to Jews who demand signs and foolishness to Greeks who seek wisdom, nevertheless this Christ preached by Paul is the Sign of God and the Wisdom of His Spirit (1. Corinthians 1,22-24). 
5. In today’s Gospel pericope, Jesus gives the Jews a sign of His Divine and claim to be the Messiah: He miraculously turned water into wine (John 2,8). It was the custom in Jesus’ day that the good wine was served first at Jewish weddings and then the cheaper wine was served. By swapping the order, Jesus showed that what God had given before was fine, but He had reserved His very best for last. The Patriarchs and the Prophets prepared the way for the Messiah, and now the Messiah is in their midst; Jesus is the Good Wine. He had manifested His Glory and His disciples believed in Him (John 2,11). 
6. Jesus also gives the Greeks the wisdom of His Divine and claim to be the Christ: »Wisdom walks in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justification, granting an inheritance to those who love Me, and filling their treasuries« (Proverbs 8,20-21). Jesus said: »If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free« (John 8,31-32). 
7. Epiphany is the manifestation of God to humans, and the Apostle Paul proclaims that Jesus is the Sign and Wisdom of God, and as such Jesus is the reason for the Divine appearance. The Apostle John tells us that Jesus’ 1. miracle and sign was done at a wedding in Cana. Jesus’ signs are miracles of blessing through which we are led to our salvation, and they are also given as examples and proofs that the Lord uses nature in His healing of humanity (Löhe ¶ 5). Jesus taught on another occasion: »No one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, then the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins« (Luke 5,37-38). 
8. Jesus is the New Wine put in the new wineskin. Jesus is God made flesh. He is the secret and hidden Wisdom of God whom God decreed before the ages for our glory. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: »Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, for Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son« (Hebrews 3,3.5-6). »Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the new covenant He mediates it better, since it is enacted on better promises« (Hebrews 8,6). »For when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, for by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified« (Hebrews 10:12, 14).  »Therefore let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The righteous shall live by faith« (Hebrews 10,22.38). 
9. Our faith is in Christ crucified. The cross is the sign and wisdom of God for salvation »We look to Jesus, the Founder and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God« (Hebrews 12,2). This Ascended Jesus intercedes for us each day, sending forth the Holy Spirit to keep us in the Christian faith, to withstand the temptations of the devil and the tribulations of the world, to guide us in holy living, for Christ is our Savior, our New Wine in New Wineskins.  Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Christ, Thou Wisdom of God; help us to boast in You, so that we remain humble to hear Your holy word and to rejoice in it now and always.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 
Soli Deo Gloria

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.  
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.  
Löhe, Wilhelm. Evangelien-Postille für die Sonn- und Festage des Kirchenjahres. Copyright © 1859 Samuel Gottlieb Liesching. A sermon preached on John 2,1-11 for The 2. Sunday after the Epiphany. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2011. 

Starck, Johann Friedrich. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House. 

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