✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Romans 9,1-5.31-10,4 4312
10. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 055
Clara of Assisi, Italy, Abbess, † 1253
12. August 2012
1. O Heavenly Father, You loved humanity in spite of our rebellious nature. You exhort us to pray, but many times we do not pray as we should. We know, however, that our borough desperately needs our prayers. Guide us, then, and teach us to pray for our community and neighbors. We begin with the Lord's Prayer and offer up specific petitions for the needs of those in our midst so that Your mercy and love are are manifested to Your great glory. Amen.
2. I am speaking the truth in Christ﹣I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit﹣that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. But Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written: »Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.« (Isaiah 8,14) Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
3. The Apostle Paul uncovers the false premise in all the world religions: »Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness«. In Paul’s day, Judaism wrongly merited righteousness based upon the works of the law. In Paul’s day, the scribes and Pharisees taught this very obedience to the law unto righteousness. Their premise was: since Yahweh gave us the law at Sinai, He intends for us to perfectly keep this law. To ensure that the Ten Commandments were kept, the Pharisees enforced the 613 statements and principles of law, ethics and spiritual practice contained in the Five Books of the Bible. If all these hundreds of laws were kept, then one would merit the perfect obedience of the law. But it was worse. In Paul’s day the Pharisees argued about such minutia as how many tassels should hang from one’s garment? Was it three or four? Furthermore, how long should these tassels be? What constituted work on the Sabbath? Could you pull your cow out of the ditch if she got stuck? The Pharisees allowed this action, but they criticized Jesus when He healed people on the Sabbath.
4. Such strict enforcement of the law eventually leads to two outcomes. One either becomes despondent at the utter inability to keep the law perfectly day after day and year after year. Or one becomes so convinced that keeping the law is possible that one becomes a Pharisee who outwardly follows the laws and takes great pride in this daunting accomplishment. Needless to say, not to many Pharisees became Christians, but hundreds and thousands of destitute sinners did.
5. Luke records the multitudes of Jews converting to Christianity in the first months and years of the Church. »So those who received Peter’s word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved« (Acts 2,41.47). »But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand« (Acts 4,4). »And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women« (Acts 5,14). »And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6,7)«
6. Did you catch that last phrase from Luke? Many of the Jewish priests became Christians. These priests realized that the crucified Christ is the fulfillment of the sacrificial laws that governed the temple. The Lamb of God has taken the place of all the lambs of God. His blood has purchased the world’s forgiveness.
7. Unrighteous sinners need the righteous of God. This righteousness cannot be earned by obeying the commandments. This righteousness cannot be merited by doing things we think are pleasing to God. This righteousness is given only by God in Christ. The Apostle Paul summarizes it this way: »Righteousness is pursued by faith, for Christ is the end of the law so that all who believe shall be justified« (9,32.10,4).
8. In Christ, we see that God the Father desires to save every one, whether that person is a Jew or Gentile. God doesn’t designate some to damnation and others to salvation (Epitome 11¶19). The reason for condemnation lies in that people don’t hear God’s Word at all, but willfully despise it, plugging their ears and their heart and therefore block the Holy Spirit’s ordinary path, so that He can’t carry out His work in them, or if they have listened to it, they toss it to the wind and don’t pay any attention to it. The fault, then, doesn’t lie with God, His Word or His election, but the fault lies with their own guilty spite (Epitome 11¶12).
9. Here we see the great mercy and love of our God. The Holy Spirit has brought the gospel into our midst. We have heard God’s Word and the Spirit has created faith in our hearts. We are God’s people, individuals who are a part of Israel, or as the apostles call it in in the New Testament, the Church. We can rejoice with the many blessings God has given us. This is our Bible, our stories and our ancestors in the faith. The adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the Divine Service and the promises are ours because we are Israel. We have the Divine Word, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We have been saved by grace though faith (Ephesians 2,8). This forgiveness and salvation is God’s gift to us through His only-begotten Son. We have been brought into the family of Israel by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2,13). He has reconciled us to our Heavenly Father through the cross (Ephesians 2,16). We are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and Christ Jesus is the Cornerstone (Ephesians 2,19-20).
10. Righteousness and justification are based upon the merit of Christ Jesus. God gives it to us as a gift, and therefore He has elected each one of us unto eternal salvation. In this beneficial doctrine of election we know how we are chosen to eternal life in Christ out of pure grace without any merit of our own, and we know that nobody can tear us out of Christ’s hand, how He not only promised such a merciful election with mere words, but He also affirmed it with the oath and has sealed it with the Holy Sacraments, so that in our greatest trials we remember and comfort ourselves and thereby we can quench the fiery darts of the devil (Epitome 11¶13).
11. You are righteous and justified by faith, faith in the crucified and risen Christ. Christ is the end of the law and the source of the gospel. By grace you are saved by faith. Rejoice and revel in the righteousness Christ freely gives you. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, You are our God and we are the people of Your pasture and the sheep of Your hand. Bless our house of prayer so that we may worship here in solemnity and be refreshed by the gospel of our forgiveness and encouraged to share the same with our neighbors. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
✠
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.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
No comments:
Post a Comment