2. Peter 3,8-13 5523
Ewigkeitssonntag 75
Drittlezter Sonntag des Kirchenjahres. 25. Trinitatis
Konrad, Bishop of Konstanz, Germany. ✠ 976
26. November 2023
1. ℣ The King’s daughters shall be brought into the King:
℟ The virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto Thee (Psalm 45,13a.14).
О Lord Jesus Christ, Bridegroom of Thy Church; with joy and gladness we await Your advent, so that when You return we shall be in Your fellowship of eternal resurrected life. Amen. (Psalm 45,14-15 gradual).
2. »But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will arrive like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the advent of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.«
3. Water, fire, earth and air are the 4 primordial elements in ancient Greek philosophy. By water, Yahweh cleansed the antediluvian world; by fire, He will cleanse the postdiluvian world. The Scriptures often use water and fire to describe Yahweh’s judgment and forgiveness. »Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean« (Isaiah 1,16), and »And one of the seraphim touched my mouth with a burning coal, and said: „Behold this as touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for“« (Isaiah 6,6.7).
4. The Triune God is patient and long-suffering. He is slow to judge and quick to forgive. Yahweh told Noah about the Flood and waited at least 100 years before He sent the Deluge upon the Earth; the Apostle Peter speaks about the fire of judgment and Yahweh has waited 2000 years and He still has not sent the consuming fire. His compassion is found throughout the pages of Scripture. »For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord Yahweh; so turn, and live« (Ezekiel 18,32). »Say to them: As I live, declares the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?« (Ezekiel 33,11). »The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance« (2. Peter 3,9).
5. God the Father is wrath and judgment upon sin has been fully born by the crucified Christ. »For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit« (Romans 8,3-4). »For our sake God the Father made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God« (2. Corinthians 5,21). »There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus« (Romans 8,1).
6. The Prophets looked forward to this final day of restoration. Ezekiel heard from the Lord Yahweh: »They will be My people, and I will be their God. My Servant David will be King over them, and they will have one Shepherd« (Ezekiel 37,23c-24a). Of His eternal Son of David, John the Baptizer declares: »He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire« (Matthew 3,11b). Moses also tells us that Yahweh our God is a consuming fire, a zealous God (Deuteronomy 4,24). Christ desires to make us holy and righteous: He has done so by justifying us by His shed blood, and through the working of the Holy Spirit on our lives He purges us and refines us like a jeweler’s fire sanctifying us to conform more and more to His holy Image. This sanctification will not be completed during our temporal life, but on the last day He will completely make us holy in body, mind and spirit.
7. The Prophets and the Apostles tell us that before the world is purged, we ourselves are purged and refined in sanctification. »I will put them into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and purify them as gold is tested. They will call upon My Name, and I will answer them. I will say: They are My people; and they will say: Yahweh is our God« (Zechariah 13,9). »In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith that is more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise, glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ« (1. Peter 1,6-7). Our Liturgy contains numerous rites where we are purged and refined by the Holy Spirit. In the Litany we pray: O God, From all sin, from all error, from all evil; from the crafts and assaults of the Devil; from sudden and evil death; Good Lord, deliver us (lsb 288). In our prepatory rite of Confession and Absolution we acknowledge: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32,5; lsb 184).
8. We long for the return of Christ Jesus, for we are wearied and burdened by false christs who promise salvation, by false prophets who offer false hope and law burdens disguised as gospel, by those who wear us down with their incessant dating of Christ’s return, by those who persecute our Christian brothers and sisters around the world, by those who ridicule and defame Christians in our society and by the cares and duties of this fallen world that weigh us down as if a millstone were hung around our necks. The pure gospel of the crucified and risen Christ soothes burdened consciences. Every generation sees its share of tribulations that threaten to overwhelm the Church. The gospel brings us this blessed assurance (seligste Versicherung): Fear not, dear Christians, fear not, for we are saved by Christ alone (solus Christus) and no one and no thing can snatch us out of Christ’s redeeming hands: not our sins, not false teachers, not the tribulations of the world and not even the devil himself. We are free; we are forgiven; we belong to Jesus. His vicarious and substitutionary death solves our real, deadly problem: (which is our) sin. There is now full and complete peace between God the Father and us. We are righteous and justified on account of Christ’s merits which have now been credited to us. This is the doctrine of justification that Christ Jesus established for you and your salvation. Let the world and the Devil press against us with tribulations, doubts and despair! Our faith is purified in testing; our sins are purged away with the absolution. We have Christ, and He has rescued us from the fallen world and the hordes of devils that surround us. Christ is our Victor and Deliverer.
9. We will always resound and stand
Before God’s dias and throne,
With joy all singing
A new song so beautiful:
Praise, honor, glory, power and strength,
To God the Father and the Son,
With the works of the Holy Spirit
Be praised and thanked.
(Herzlich tut mich erfreuen selk 799,8 2021 Johann Walter (1545) Jahre 1552, Strophe 9 Dresden 1557)
This is most certainly true.
10. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen and Amen.
11. Let us pray. Jesus, our Lord, do Thou meet us while we walk in the way and long to reach that heavenly country, so that, following Thy light, we may keep the way of righteousness and never wander away into the darkness of this world’s night while Thou, who art the Way, the Truth and the Light, art shining within us; for Thy mercy’s sake. Amen. (27. Trinity, Vespers Collect 2. The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House.)
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 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover.
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