Psalm 74,1-3.20-21; Psalm 33,12. 10. Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Psalm 74,1-3.20-21; Psalm 33,12 4317

10. Trinitatis  055

Bernard of Clairvaux, France, Hymnwriter, Theologian, and Abbot, † 1153 

20. August 2017 

1. O Jesus Christ, Thou our Vindication, keep us as the apple of Your eye and hide us in the shadow of Your wings, so that our eyes behold Thy Righteousness.  Amen. (Gradual). 

2. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage! O God, why have You rejected us forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance; and this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt. Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins; The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary. Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame; let the poor and needy praise Your Name. 

3. The Pslamist’s exhortation: »Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage!« is contrasted against Jesus’ declaration: »O Jerusalem, would that you had known on this day the things that make for peace! For the days will arrive upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you, hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground. They will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation« (Luke 19,42-44). 

4. Israel had been chosen from among all the nations to carry from generation to generation the promise first given to Adam and Eve: I, the Lord, will send mankind a Savior to deliver them from Your fall into sin and redeem them from the curse of sin, which is death. The Apostle Paul says it this way: »To Israel belongs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all« (Romans 9,4-5). 

5. The Psalmist asks the question: »O God, why do You cast us off; why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?« Stephen gives the answer: »O elders and scribes, you are stiff-necked and always resist the Holy Spirit. Which of the Prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the advent of the Righteous One, Jesus, whom you have now betrayed and murdered« (Acts 7,51-53). The Jewish political and religious leaders had rejected the temple where the Lord had dwelt on Mt. Zion. Jesus proclaimed that He is the physical dwelling of the Lord in their midst; His body is the holy temple. 

6. What happened at the temple in Jesus’ day? A: In Jesus’ day, the temple served three functions: 1. the courtyard served as a place for Jews and God-fearing Gentiles to gather, worship and pray; 2. the courtyard served as a place where rabbis and scribes taught the Scriptures; and 3. the Mosaic covenant sacrifices were performed there where the sins of the people were forgiven. Jesus fulfilled the temple’s role of sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1,29). For the Jews, to reject Jesus their Messiah is to reject Moses, the temple and the sacrifice for sin; in short, to reject Jesus was to reject their Judaism. To reject Jesus is to reject both the Father and the Holy Spirit, for Jesus and the Father are one, and they send the Holy Spirit who teaches us and brings to remembrance all Jesus said (John 10,30; 14,6).  

7. The Romans destroyed the temple twice: 1. they crucified Jesus, and 2. when the Jews rebelled a generation later (ad 66), General Titus besieged Jerusalem, captured the city and destroyed the temple as the remaining Jewish rebels made their last stand there. At the end of August 70 the temple sacrifices ended and have never been reinstituted. The true temple, Jesus, was was destroyed and rebuilt in His crucifixion and resurrection. His one-time sacrifice fulfilled His Father’s covenant promise given to Moses at Mt. Sinai. 

8. The Introit prophesied this about the temple 1000 years before it occurred: »O Lord, direct Your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.« Yet the Lord does not forget His Israel He regards His covenant with them. The apostles preached the gospel of Christ crucified first to the Jews and only then to the Gentiles. Those who reject this gospel have the sign of their unbelief in the rubble of the Jewish temple that now is occupied by Islam’s Dome of the Rock mosque; those who receive this gospel have the sign of their belief in the empty tomb of Jesus’ resurrection. The Apostle Peter writes in his epistle: »As you draw near to Christ, a Living Stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy« (1. Peter 2,4-5.9-10). 

9. As God’s people in Christ, He defends you and your cause: »Blessed is the congregation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage.« »The Eye of the Lord is on those who fear, love and trust Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love and mercy, so that He delivers them from eternal death and keeps them alive with eternal life« (Psalm 33,18-19).  Amen. 

10. Let us pray. O God, Thou art the Shepherd of Thy people; keep us safely in Your fold, so that we may withstand the trials and temptations of this world.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Soli Deo Gloria

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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.