1. John 4,7-12. 13. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever 

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

1. John 4,7-12 4416

13. Sonntag nach Trinitatis  058  

Bonosus and Maximilianus, soldiers, Martyrs 363 

21. August 2016 

1. О Lord God, Heavenly Father, we most heartily thank You that You have granted us to live in this accepted time, when we may hear Your holy gospel, know Your fatherly will and behold Your Son, Jesus Christ! We pray, O Most Merciful Father: Let the light of Your holy word remain with us, and so govern our hearts by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may never forsake Your word, but remain steadfast in it, and finally obtain eternal salvation; through Your beloved Son, 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 13. Sn. n. Trinitatis) 

2. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.  

3. Genesis 1 and 2 tell us that God created mankind in His Image, and that mankind is male and female together. Although the text of Genesis doesn’t use the word „love“, it is rather clear from the context that God does indeed love His creation and that He created man and woman out of love. Is this the type of love that an artisan has for his sculpture or is it the type of love that a parent has for a child? 

4. The Apostle John answers this question. He tells us that love is from God and therefore we are able to love one another. Love is something God put into our created nature when He made us in His Image and Likeness. Genesis 3 unfortunately tells us that mankind has lost this Divine Image and therefore has also lost Divine love. This happens immediately after eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil: Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent. In the next chapter we hear the horrifying story of how Cain murdered his brother Abel. Mankind has not evolved or bettered itself since those tragic events of ancient history. Thus St. Paul tells Timothy: »In the last days there will be times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of Godliness, but denying its power« (2. Timothy 3,1-4). Such is the state of fallen men and women. 

5. Our love has been corrupted by sin, but God’s love for us has not. St. John tells us: »God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.« God expressed this love to Adam and Eve by promising them a savior who would undo the wicked harm caused by the serpent and their failure to obey His one command. God reminded mankind of this promise throughout the ages, especially through the patriarchs and the prophets, but most impressively through Abraham and Isaac. In Genesis 22 we read that God tested Abraham by telling him: »Take your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering. When they had arrived, Abraham built the altar, placed the wood and bound Isaac his son and put him on the altar. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son, but at that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven: „Abraham, do not sacrifice your son, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withhold your only son from me.“ Then Abraham saw a ram and offered him up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord will provide, for the Lord had provided that day on the mountain« (Genesis 22,1-2.9-14). 

6. Abraham saw Jesus that day manifested as the angel of the Lord. The law and gospel dovetailed that day. The Divine command: You must offer up your son was abrogated by the Divine mercy: offer up this ram instead. The Divine command: An only son must be sacrificed; the Divine mercy: someone else will be sacrificed in our place. This act of penal substitution and vicarious sacrifice were fulfilled by Jesus on the cross. Thus, Abraham saw Jesus’ day when he went up to Moriah to sacrifice his son. Abraham saw Jesus’ day when he received Isaac back from the dead. Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah are the great Old Testament type of the glorious New Testament antitype of God the Father and His Son, Jesus. Abraham received from the Lord the promise of the gospel, the promise that the Christ would descend from him, the promise that this Christ would be a sacrifice for the world’s sin and raised up again. 4000 years later on Mt. Zion God the Father sacrificed His Only-begotten Son, and we also call the name of that place: Christ has provided, for Christ has provided at Good Friday on the mountain. 

7. Saint John records the merciful words of Jesus in his Gospel: »For God loved the world so much that He gave His Only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order so save the world through Him« (John 3,16-17). John later commented on this proclamation of Jesus in his epistle: »In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.« 

8. The gospel tells us that Christ has saved us, and this His did out of love for us; this same gospel then empowers us to love each other. Such love is not always easy, but as God loves and forgives us, so too do we love and forgive each other. Jesus taught us this in His prayer: O Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The gospel tells us that this is a gracious and merciful petition that is grounded upon the fact that Christ Himself first loved us and has forgiven us of all our sins. We, then, pay it forward to others, loving and forgiving as Christ loves and forgives us.  

9. The Psalmist tells us: »You, O Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness« (Psalm 86,15). And again: »For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us« (Psalm 103,11-12). This is the sort of love and forgiveness the apostles and evangelists urge from us, for »if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.« May the Holy Spirit help us to live this way through faith each day.   Amen. 

10. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You alone are worthy to be praised, help us to blessed Your Name from this time forth and forevermore so that our neighbors may know of Your love and forgiveness for them.  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.  

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.