Luke 22,31-34. Invocavit

✠ In the Name of Jesus ✠

Luke 22,31-34   1413

Invokavit (1. Sonntag der Passionszeit)  024 „He will call“ 

Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, Martyr 449 

17. February 2013

1.  O Lord, our Refuge and Fortress, we live in a world twisted by sin and corrupted by wickedness. We can only blame our own sinful selves for this pathetic state. We are daily in sore need of You to rescue us, and we trust in You alone for You are our Shield and Defender against sin, death and the devil.  Amen.  

2. Jesus said to his apostle: „Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, so that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you so that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.“ Peter answered Him: „Lord, I am ready to go with You both to prison and to death.“ Jesus replied: „I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know Me.“   

3. What Jesus tells Simon Peter is nothing new: Satan desires to sift men and women like wheat. Such a desire is Satan’s modus operandi: he convinced one-third of the heavenly angels to join him in rebellion against the Triune God and he swept them down with him in his fall. Then Satan cast his eyes upon the crown of creation: Adam and Eve. He tempted Eve to rebel against Yahweh by eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve then convinced Adam to do the same, and Yahweh punished fallen mankind with curses that still afflict us to this very day. 

4. The Apostle Peter made a bold claim to stand fast with Jesus even unto imprisonment and death. Adam and Eve likewise had made bold claims to resist the devil’s temptation, but they failed and yielded to the devil just as Peter would do. How many times a day do we make bold proclamations to stand fast on the Word of God, to sweep Satan aside when he comes a calling but when the hour arrives our strength fails us and we easily fall prey to his wily temptations. 

5. The Apostle Peter is most renowned for his betrayal of his rabbi and friend in the hour of His temptation. Fallen human nature is quick to remember the unfortunate events in people’s lives rather than the good. Benedict Arnold is infamous not as a strategic military commander but as someone who betrayed the Continental Congress and switched his allegiance to the British in the midst of the War for Independence. Peter is known as the apostle who denied knowing Jesus three times in one night. Judas is known as the apostle who betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin. Thomas is remembered as Doubting Thomas because he did not immediately believe that Jesus had risen from the grave. Nevertheless, Peter preached the gospel and was instrumental in establishing the Church in Rome, and Thomas went as far east as India and China to preach the gospel. When the time came, Jesus kept them steadfast as Peter was crucified in Rome and Thomas was stabbed to death with spears in India for preaching Christ crucified. Both apostles died as martyrs in the faith. 

6. The curse of the fall has substantially weakened our human nature. Thus Peter in weakness denied Jesus, and we daily fail to live according to God’s will. Our wisdom and judgment have been impaired to such an extent that we might make foolish or catastrophic decisions. Moses tells us that as a result of their sin, Yahweh banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and furthermore place powerful angels, the cherubim, to guard the tree of life from intrepid human beings seeking for immortality. 

7. Yahweh took such actions to protect men and women. He cannot even finish the thought of what would happen should Adam and Eve or their descendants attempt to now eat from the tree of life and live forever in their sinful state. Peter was going to be sifted by Satan. He would utterly fail to resist him and horribly deny Jesus. Nevertheless, Jesus granted him the strength to repent and strengthen the disciples in the wake of Jesus suffering and death. 

8. In this fallen world we are besieged on all sides with temptations from the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh. Even our own mind, heart and spirit desire to do what is wicked in the eyes of Yahweh. The Apostle Paul rightly diagnoses our condition: as it is written: »None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. There is no fear of God before their eyes. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in God’s sight, since the knowledge of sin comes through the law« (Romans 3,10-12.18.20). The Commandments stand before our eyes, but we fail to keep them. The devil sifts us daily. 

9. Jesus began His ministry by being baptized and thrown into the wilderness among the ravenous devil. Jesus was a lamb among a wolf. But this lamb has horns and Jesus took the struggle of temptation straight at the devil. Time and again the devil did his best to get Jesus to sin, and each time Jesus bested him until the devil finally tucked his tail between his legs and ran off. Jesus did for us what we can never do ourselves: He lived a sinless life, He kept all the Commandments and He resisted the devil. Jesus did this vicariously in our place and He gives us the benefits of His victory. 

10. Jesus desires His fallen creation to once again have access to the tree of life so that we may live forever in blessed righteousness. Jesus is our Righteousness and our Tree of life. His death and resurrection open the way to everlasting life, and He gives us this gift freely and graciously. 

11. The Psalmist reminds us of the mercy of our Triune God, writing: »You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. You will say to Yahweh: „My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.“ He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and buckler. For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Yahweh says: When you call to Me, I will answer you; I will be with you in trouble; I will rescue you and honor you. I will satisfy you with long life and show you My salvation« (Psalm 91,1-2.4.11-12.15-16).

12. In the Garden of Eden, Jesus had to bar our access to the tree of life lest we attempt to partake of its fruit to obtain eternal life ... a life in perpetual sinfulness for all eternity, but now Jesus has opened the way to the tree of life. He Himself embraced the tree limbs, stretched out His hands and feet and let the Romans nail Him to the cross. By His crucifixion, Jesus made the cross our tree of life. His shed blood on the cross watered the buds of life so that they blossomed into a glorious tree of life. When Jesus hung lifeless upon the cross, that very same cross shone with the glory of everlasting life for Jesus had accomplished the redemption of every single man, woman and child in the world. 

13. Lent takes us filthy sinners to the foot of the cross where Jesus paid for our sins in full. Easter takes us purified saints from the foot of the cross to the empty tomb and beyond where Jesus rose and promises to raise us up too on the last day in righteousness and eternal life. Jesus beseeches His Father so that our faith will remain steadfast unto the end, whereupon we will see Him with our eyes and rejoice for all He has done to save us and see us through to the end, which is everlasting life with the Triune God, the angels and archangels and the entire host of Christian believers who have gone on before us.  Amen. 

14. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, You appeared to destroy the works of the devil; send us the Holy Spirit to guide us along Your holy path during Lent so that by traveling with You to the cross we see the joy of eternal life that is Your pure gift to us.  Amen.  

One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you! 

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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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