✠ 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, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th 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.
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