✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ
Philippians 3,7-14 4016
9. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 054
Christina, Virgin, Martyr, beginning of the 3. century
24. Juli 2016
1. О Lord God, Heavenly Father, who has bountifully given us Your blessing and our daily bread: We beseech You, preserve us from covetousness, and so quicken our hearts so that we willingly share Your blessed gifts with our needy brethren; so that we may be found faithful stewards of Your gifts, and abide in Your grace when we shall be removed from our stewardship, and shall go before Your judgment, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the 9. Sn. n. Trinitatis)
2. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith – so that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, so that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
3. The Lord spoke through the Prophet Jeremiah saying: »Behold, the days are arriving when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a Righteous Branch to spring up for David, and He will execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the Lord is our righteousness« (Jeremiah 33,14-16). This Righteous Branch was promised to the patriarchs from Adam to Abraham to David to Judah, and the promise was that the Lord would undo the curse imposed upon Adam for his sin, redeem Israel and save the Gentiles (all the nations of the world). Thus when Jesus was presented to the Lord at the Temple, Simeon took Him into his arms and praised the Lord, saying: »Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of Thy people Israel!« (Luke 2,30-32). Thus the Apostle Paul told the Philippian Christians: »I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.«
4. John the Baptizer tells us that Jesus is »the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world« (John 1,29). The Prophet Isaiah says that this Lamb of God »will be oppressed and afflicted, yet He will not open His mouth; He will be cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of the Lord’s people. For it is the Lord’s will to crush Him; for His life will make an offering for sin. All people will be accounted righteous, for He will bear their iniquities« (Isaiah 53,7-8.10-11).
5. Jesus bore our iniquities on the cross. Jesus the Branch
died upon another branch, the cross. The Living Branch sacrificed Himself upon the dead branch, and in doing so Jesus made the cross into a tree of life to overcome the curse of the tree of knowledge. For by a tree mankind exchanged his righteousness in the image and likeness of God, so by a tree God restored mankind’s righteousness. The cross has thus become the world tree, for Jesus has taken away the win of the entire world.
6. Saint Paul tells us: »We gain Christ and find in Him the righteousness from God that depends on faith so that we know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, so that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.« Again Paul: »We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us« (Romans 5,3-5). The apostle tells us that believing in Jesus means enduring a life of suffering on account of that faith and confession. It bears itself out in different ways at different times. Christians are persecuted around the world and some of them are martyred for their faith in Christ. We find that our American culture is increasingly more hostile and intolerant of the Christian faith and those who confess it. We patiently endure such suffering because we know that Christ Himself thus suffered and the end result for us is the resurrection which overturns all the devastation that suffering inflicts upon us. Paul reminds us: »For if we have been united with Christ in a suffering like His, then we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His« (Romans 6,5).
7. For our goal in our Christian faith is Jesus. St. Paul tells us: »Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.« Our goal is not the things of this world, for the things of this world — wealth, possessions, reputation — they pale in comparison to the things of heaven. The things of this world tarnish and fade away, but the things of heaven are eternal. Jesus promises that we will inherit the things of heaven: everlasting life in His presence, fellowship with the angels, archangels and all believers in Christ who have gone before us, a resurrected body free from the corruption of sin and death and a return to the paradise of Eden for which He originally created us to enjoy in His presence. This is the wonderful prize that God has for us on the last day. Jesus has secured it for us, and He gives us His righteous now as a down-payment on the future blessings that are ours as heirs of God. Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, those who seek You rejoice and are glad in You; send forth the Holy Spirit to encourage us to remain faithful to You and keep our eyes on the prize of eternal life so that we may say:„Great is the Lord!“ who has redeemed us and adopted us for His own. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm
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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.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.
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