Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: April 2016

Monday, April 18, 2016

1. John 5,1-4. Jubilate

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

1. John 5,1-4 2616

Jubilate 038

Anicet, Bishop of Rome, Martyr 173

17. April 2016

1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, who of Your Fatherly goodness does suffer Your children to come under Your chastening rod here on earth, so that we may be like unto Your Only-begotten Son in suffering and hereafter in glory: We beseech You, comfort us in temptations and afflictions by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may not fall into despair, but that we may continually trust in Your Son’s promise, so that our trials will endure but a little while, and will then be followed by eternal joy; so that we thus, in patient hope, may overcome all evil, and at last obtain eternal salvation. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the Jubilate)

2. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world.

3. The Apostle John tells us in his Epistle: »Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world.« You are a child of God, and you have overcome the world by faith in the crucified and risen Christ. The Holy Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation point us to this dying and rising Christ. He was sent to redeem the fallen and cursed world.

4. „The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost. For none now live who remember it. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, and legend became myth“ (Galadriel’s monologue in the Lord of the Rings movie). Genesis recounts the old truth we have buried and forgotten: »The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually« (Genesis 6,5). That was the state of the fallen world prior to the Flood. Lest we comfort ourselves that we are better people and less wicked than our Antediluvian ancestors, consider St. Paul’s indictment upon us: »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« (Romans 3,10-12; cf. Psalms 14,1-3; 53,1-3; Ecclesiastes 7,20). We have clearly lost the Image and Likeness of God in our fall into sin. The first Adam was created and begotten as God’s son. He was in all creation just below God Himself, even more glorious than the Archangel Lucifer who bore the very light of God. In his rebellion, Adam exchanged the glory of God for the glory of corrupted man.

5. God the Father does not tolerate the corruption of His fallen creation in man. God, therefore sent His own Son, begotten before all worlds, who is Light of Light and True God of True God, to redeem man. Jesus is this Second Adam who bears the perfect Image and Likeness of His Heavenly Father.

6. St. John tells us: »Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.« We are thus twice-born, for of everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him: 1. through our inheritance as sons or daughters of Adam, and 2. as sons or daughters baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

7. The Old Adam was created in the Image and Likeness of God to believe in God and do good works. But the only works the Old Adam excels in are the works of the flesh that delight in wickedness and result in evil. The New Adam is True God in all His Image and Likeness according to His Divine Nature. He shows us the Father, and we are baptized into His death and resurrection so that we are again true sons and daughters of God by grace through faith. Jesus used a different metaphor for it in today’s Gospel Lection: »I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.« (John 15,5).

8. We are sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus to believe on Him for forgiveness and salvation, then to produce the good works that are born from faith as befits people born and reborn in the Image and Likeness of God.

9. Sometimes the Holy Scriptures describe good works with the phrase „works of mercy“ (διακονια). From this we get the English word „deacon“ and „deaconess“ which generically mean „one who waits on a table“ but in the New Testament is used to describe an act of service or ministry to another. Jesus Himself exemplified these works of mercy in His life and public ministry.

10. As His public ministry drew to a close on Maundy Thursday, Jesus proclaimed: »Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends« (John 15,13). Jesus laid down His life for both His friends and His enemies, for Jesus willingly and lovingly died for the whole world: for those who would believe in Him, and for those who would reject Him. He then became the first fruits of those of the resurrection, for by His resurrection we will also be resurrected on the last day. His love, His forgiveness, is for you: for all believers and also for all who reject Him. Jesus exhorts us to testify of His love and forgiveness with words and works of mercy. The world may hate us, but the world hated Jesus before it hated us (John 15,18). If they persecuted Jesus, then they will persecute us; if they keep His Word, then they will keep ours too (John 15,20). Whoever hates Jesus also hates God the Father; but whoever loves Jesus also loves the Father (John 15,23). Beloved in Jesus, our friends love us, but our enemies hate us; nevertheless, Jesus wants us to do works of mercy for both friends and foes alike so that they may see the love of Christ, and in seeing that love may believe the gospel when they hear it: that Jesus loves them and died for them in order to forgive them and save them.

11. Our works of mercy are needed now more than ever. We live in a land with a culture that is fast abandoning its Christian heritage and foundation. Generations of Christians have cultured and nurtured Western civilization into a culture that gladly put the neighbor first by the nature of grace and not the coercion of civil laws. Classic Liberal philosophy is firmly grounded upon Christian faith and theology. What calls itself Liberalism today in America is a mere shadow of that once great philosophy. 21. Century Liberalism is more and more becoming angry, intolerant and coercive. Day by day it casts an ever-lengthening unfriendly and disapproving shadow upon everyone and every position that does not agree in lockstep with it.

12. Our nation and our neighbors need Christians and Christianity now more than ever. The farther our culture digresses from Classical Western civilization, the more callous, intolerant and oppressive our culture will become against all others who voice a dissenting opinion. Many cultural elites parrot the political correct view that God and society must be separated from each other. Nothing could be further from the truth! Our society needs Jesus, faith in Him and the works of mercy that naturally flow from faith. Be that son of God, be that daughter of God, who stands strong in your faith, trusting only in Jesus and doing merciful works that will benefit both nation and neighbor. Amen.

13. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou preserves the lives of Your Christian people. Give us Your life and strength so that we live, move and have our being in You alone, our Risen Lord. Amen.

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 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Monday, April 11, 2016

1. Peter 2,21-25. Misericordias Domini

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

1. Peter 2,21-25 2516

Miserikordias Domini 037

Daniel, Prophet, 606-536 bc

10. April 2016

1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, who of Your Fatherly goodness has been mindful of us poor, miserable sinners, and has given Your Beloved Son to be our Shepherd, not only to nourish us by His word, but also to defend us from sin, death and the devil: We beseech You, grant us Your Holy Spirit, so that, even as this Shepherd does know us and succor us in every affliction, we also may know Him, and, trusting in Him, seek help and comfort in Him, from our hearts obey His voice and obtain eternal salvation, through the same, Your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for Misericordias Domini).

2. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your lives.

3. Jesus the Good Shepherd is one of the most recognizable metaphors used by our Lord. The stained glass window behind our altar depicts Jesus as this Good Shepherd and this verse spoken by Jesus: »I am the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep« (John 10,11). The ministry of Jesus leads to Calvary and the cross where Christ laid down His very life in order to redeem us back to God the Father. No other religion or philosophy teaches redemption through a God suffering and dying for humanity. Christianity does, and it points us to Jesus who is the world’s Savior. God the Father sent Jesus into the world to redeem the world.

4. A world in need of redemption means it had something to be redeemed from. The Prophet Isaiah identifies our predicament: »All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has placed on Him the iniquity of us all« (Isaiah 53,6). Isaiah tells us we are all prodigal sons and daughters who have demanded our inheritance from God the Father and have decided to be masters of our own destiny without God’s interference. We inherited this rebellious streak from our first parents Adam and Eve. They desired the knowledge of both good and evil, so they took that knowledge for themselves by eating from the tree of knowledge. Their rebellion did not turn out well for them. They became estranged, lost sheep from God and prodigals from Paradise.

5. One could argue that we, their descendants, have carved out a descent niche on this Planet Earth. We grow abundant crops, have travelled to the Moon and back and we’ve even split the atom. But at what cost! Our inhumanity to one another knows no bounds. War and violence consume our lives. We struggle to keep what little possessions we have acquired at great cost. We have abandoned God and made ourselves the focus of our idolatry. The depth of this separation from God manifests itself in many ways, one particular example coming from the very lips of a presidential candidate, who said: „the unborn person does not have constitutional rights,“ even if the child is just hours away from delivery that child is still deprived of rights because „that is the way we structure it“ (http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hillary.clinton.insists.unborn.baby.doesnt.have.rights.even.if.the.child.is.just.hours.away.from.delivery/83524.htm).

6. God the Father desires to save and redeem His prodigal sons and daughters. He sends His Son to find us. Jesus found Adam and Eve when they hid in the Garden. Jesus finds all who have wandered astray from Him. »Jesus said to Zacchaeus: „Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man went to seek and to save the lost“« (Luke 19,10).

7. The price to redeem His prodigal mankind was costly. The Apostle Peter writes in his Epistle: »Christ suffered for you …. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.« The apostle is referring to the Prophet Isaiah: »Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My Righteous Servant will justify all people, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of all people, and made intercession for the transgressors« (Isaiah 53,10-12).

8. Truly this is Misericordia Domini, the mercy of the Lord, for by His death and resurrection we have the mercy of God the Father as the 23. Psalm reminds us: »Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever« (Psalm 23,6).

9. Jesus has redeemed all people back to His Father. The sin of the fallen world has been forgiven. The gates of hades have been shut to us and the gates of heaven have been opened wide for us. But God does not force heaven and salvation upon His creation. Satan and the demons freely desired to exist apart from God’s presence, and God gave them what they wanted; He even created a place for them to live out this Divine separation. God does not force men and women to believe the gospel of salvation. His forgiveness and salvation can be rejected. Free will can choose to remain separated from God and remain astray. It is not what God wants, but He has done everything to redeem mankind and if individuals decide to reject His grace then they choose to reject living in His presence. There is an abode where such dwell who oppose living in the midst of God’s presence. Hades is that abode and people who reject God’s grace will live there with the demons who have rejected God too. God created us for Paradise, and He has restored that Paradise to us. Now, that Paradise is experienced only in part on this temporal world when we gather to celebrate Jesus in the Word and Sacrament and fellowship together as Christians in the Name of Jesus. Other Christians have transcended this temporal earth and abide with Jesus and His heavenly host in the Paradise of heaven. But this heavenly Paradise is but a foretaste of the eternal life to be inaugurated. The Holy Scriptures tell us that on the last day Jesus will return and create a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus will be the center of this new creation and we will dwell in His Divine Light forever and ever. Jesus is our Good Shepherd and Faithful Bishop: Jesus has ransomed us, His Father has welcomed His prodigal children home and everlasting life in God presence just as He intended when He created Adam and Eve. Amen.

10. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd, send forth the Holy Spirit to gather the lost and give them faith unto life everlasting. 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^th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27^th 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.

Monday, April 4, 2016

1. Peter 1,3-9. Quasimodogeniti

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

1. Peter 1,3-9 2416

Quasimodogeniti 036

Agape, Chionia, Irene, Virgins, Martyrs at Thessalonia, 304

3. April 2016

1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank You, that of Your, ineffable grace, for the sake of Your Son, You have given us the holy gospel, and have instituted the Holy Sacraments, so that through the same we may have comfort and forgiveness of sin: We beseech You, grant us Your Holy Spirit, so that we may heartily believe Your Word; and through the Holy Sacraments day by day establish our faith, until we at last obtain salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the Quasimodogeniti)

2. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 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 – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your lives.

3. St. John the Apostle and Evangelist tells us this morning in his Gospel: »Then Jesus said to Thomas: „Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.“ Thomas answered Him: „My Lord and my God!“ Jesus said to him: „Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed“« (John 20,27-29). We are those whom Jesus said are blessed: we have not seen the risen Jesus; we have not touched Him; nevertheless, we believe in the risen Jesus for we have heard the proclamation of the gospel and the Holy Spirit created faith in this Jesus.

4. The Apostle Peter lists some specific fruits of our faith in the risen Jesus:

i. we are born again to a living hope

ii. we have an inheritance that is imperishable,

undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us

iii. God’s power guards our faith for the salvation to

be revealed in the last time

iv. our faith is tested by trials of fire so as to purify it.

5. To believe in Jesus is to be born again. Jesus and Nicodemus had this discussion in John 3. Jesus told him: »Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the reign of God. No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life« (John 3,5.12-14). To be born again is to simply believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. This faith in the crucified and risen Jesus is a faith with a living hope. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: »Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen« (Hebrews 11,1).

6. Our living hope is in God’s promise of the imperishable inheritance kept in heaven for us. This hope and inheritance is grounded upon Christ Jesus Himself. Jesus ascended to heaven 40 days after His resurrection to prepare this inheritance for us. Jesus told the apostles on Maundy Thursday: »In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, then would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, then I will return and will take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also« (John 14,2-3). Jesus also promised us that at His ascension His Father will send to us the Holy Spirit to guide us and encourage us in the steadfastness of faith (John 14,26).

7. Jesus will return with our heavenly inheritance on the last day. The Apostle Paul tells us that on the last day Jesus will give every Christian a crown of righteousness (2. Timothy 4,8).

8. As we await our Lord’s return, He will purify our faith in Him by testing us with trials. This discipline is intended to strengthen and purify our faith in Him, just as fire purifies and refines gold by removing other metallic impurities (1. Peter 1,7). The Apostle James encourages us by writing: »Count it all joy, for the testing of our faith produces steadfastness« (James 1,2-3).

9. Thomas saw the risen Jesus and He believed. We have not seen the risen Jesus and we believe. This not seeing yet believing is part of the test that the Holy Spirit gives us. We have heard the proclamation of the apostles who saw and believed, and in this preaching the Holy Spirit created faith within us. The Apostle Peter tells us: »Although you have not seen Jesus, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your lives.« And Jesus tells us: »Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have believed« (John 20,29).

10. John and the other Gospel evangelists wrote their Gospels so that we could read their testimony and believe in the risen Jesus. Paul and the other apostles wrote their Epistles so that we could read their proclamation of what the risen Christ means to us and the world. The Apostle Paul exhorts us to remain faithful to the gospel we have heard and received, namely that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the grave on the third day. There is not any other gospel, and if we hear a different gospel than that of the Gospels and Epistles, then we are to mark such gospels and preachers as false. At. Paul exhorts us to remain steadfast to the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ (Galatians 1,6-9), for this gospel proclaims that we are only justified through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2,15-16). We believe even when the world refuses to believe the gospel. We believe in spite of the persecution and mockery the world heaps upon us for having faith in the risen Jesus. We believe as Thomas believes, and we confess as he confesses: Jesus, You are my Lord and my God! In this gospel we live, hope and trust unto life everlasting. Amen and Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou has done great things for us, particularly rising from the grave, so that believing in Your resurrection from the dead we hope in our own resurrection by Your hand on the last day. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, April 18, 2016

1. John 5,1-4. Jubilate

Monday, April 11, 2016

1. Peter 2,21-25. Misericordias Domini

Monday, April 4, 2016

1. Peter 1,3-9. Quasimodogeniti