2. Thessalonians 3,1-5. 5. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

2. Thessalonians 3,1-5 3914

5. Sonntag nach Trinitatis  050 

Elijah, Prophet, 900 BC

Bincent of St. Paula, ✠ 1660  

20. Juli 2014 

1. O Faithful God, You call us to follow You. You have given us mothers and fathers in the Christian faith. We thank You for them and their faithfulness to the gospel that they have passed onto us. We thank You for Christians who fight against the evil one today. Strengthen us and keep us grounded in the gospel (VELKD, Prayer for the 5. Sunday after Trinity ¶ 1).  Amen. 

2. »Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, so that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.«  

3. Our Gospel Lection this morning concludes with these verses: »And Jesus said to Simon: „Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.“ And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.« Jesus had many disciples, Twelve He called Himself, like the four fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John, and these Twelve He later sent out as apostles to preach the gospel. In Luke 5 Jesus compared preaching the gospel to fishing. In this regard Jesus was comforting His new disciples. These four men knew fishing and they were good at their vocation as fishermen. Preaching the gospel was a new and different vocation for them. They were uncertain and unprepared for this new task, but Jesus assured them that it would be just like fishing: they would cast the net, and they would catch people; they would preach the gospel, and people would believe. Their success at preaching the gospel is grounded upon Jesus. 

4. Not only does Jesus promise success in their preaching, but He also teaches them the message to proclaim. Jesus began His ministry by reading in the synagogue of Nazareth from the Prophet Isaiah: »The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.« Then He proclaimed: »Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing« (Luke 4,18-19.21). And again to the crowds: »I must preach the gospel of the reign of God to the towns and synagogues of Judea« (Luke 4,43-44). The gospel Jesus preached was what He preached to the paralytic: »Man, your sins are forgiven you. But so that you Pharisees may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, paralyzed man, rise, pick up your bed and go home« (Luke 5,20.24). 

5. The gospel that creates faith and draws people into the Church is the gospel that proclaims Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose to redeem people from their sin, to rescue them from the tribulations of this cursed creation and to bring them unto eternal salvation in the presence of God, His angels and all who proceeded them in the Christian faith. This is the gospel Jesus preached, the apostles preached and pastors ought to preach today. The gospel is grounded upon Jesus and His work of redemption. Jesus’ word goes forth from His mouth, and it does not return unto Him void, but His word accomplishes that which He desires and prospers in the thing to which He sends it (Isaiah 55,11). 

6. Christ’s word stands in stark contrast to man’s word. At the end of the 19. century, liberal theologians had exchanged the gospel of forgiveness through Jesus with a social gospel concerned more about curing all the social problems of the world. As the 20. century dawned, they saw their promise of worldwide utopia on the horizon. And then the Great War happened, and the „old liberal theology was buried in the mud of the trenches of the first World War. A secularized kingdom of God was not in the cards. And utopian Marxism gives way to Realpolitik. Not much of a future, not much hope, so grab what you can, while you can“ (Nagel 173,6). Worldwide attitude has swung back to where it was one hundred years ago. Peaceful negotiations have broken down in the Ukraine and Palestine, terrorism has risen in boldness again and the words of our politicians ring hollow and detached from the reality that is around us. 

7. God’s word is certain and true; His word is grounded upon Jesus, and Jesus’ word is found in His Church. Early Christian artwork portrayed the Church as the ship of faith. Like a ship, the Church sails upon the waters, braving the tempests, to rescue people who have been shipwrecked by the wind and waves of the world. Luke 5 uses the image of catching people up in Jesus’ gospel net, but another image is to see the Church as ship that sails into disasters, throws out the life-preserver of the gospel, and hauls drowning people into the safety of the Church. In this image the Church and the gospel she proclaims is like the event described in Matthew 14 where Jesus walked on water. When Simon Peter saw the the wind and waves surging around him, he became afraid and began to drown. He cried out for Jesus to save him, and immediately stretched forth His hand, caught him and brought Peter into the safety of the ship (Matthew 14,30-31). The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonian Christians: »The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.« He does this through the power of His word that is grounded upon His merits, for „for we are given His words that tell of Him and bestow what they say by the working of His words that tell of Him and bestow what they say by the working of His Spirit. Heaven and earth and all the evidences they may supply are not so sure as His words“ (Nagel 174,7). Jesus speaks, and His authority is grounded upon the fact that He was lifted up and cried: „»It is accomplished.« That fact holds through it all. The one who sits on the throne to judge is the same one enthroned on the cross. Jesus’ dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and His kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed“ (Nagel 174,9). His word promises it, secures it and fulfills it. You have been caught up in Jesus’ net and brought into the Church. Now you help ensure that the ship is seaworthy and the nets mended so the Church and her gospel can sail forth and catch more people into the faith of Jesus.  Amen. 

8. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus, You have made known Your salvation and have revealed Your righteousness in the sight of the nations so that we receive that gospel for our deliverance.  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, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.  

Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 2011 Cambridge University Press. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand. 

Nagel, Norman. Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis. Frederick W. Baue, Ed. Copyright © 2004 Concordia Publishing House. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.