✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ
Psalm 18, 30-32.34-35a; Isaiah 41,9 5417
21. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 066
Berthilla, Abbess of Chelles, France. ✠ 692
5. November 2017
1. О Lord Jesus Christ, our Eternal Dwelling Place, as You sustain the mountains and the earth, so sustain us with Your Providence, so that we may know day after day that You are our God and Savior. Amen. (Gradual)
2. Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. God’s way is perfect; the Word of the Lord proves true; He is a Shield for all those who take refuge in Him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a Rock, except our God? He is the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the Shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand supported me.
3. The Prophet Isaiah tells us that: »The Lord is with us and is our God, therefore fear not nor be dismayed.« The celebration of the Reformation falls at the time of remembering the saints. Luther nailed his 95 Theses on 31. October, that is All Hallows’ Eve/Halloween, the day before All Hallows’ Day, that is All Saints Day. In fact, the Wittenberg University chapel is named All Saints Chapel, and it was on the door of All Saints that Luther posted his debate theses on indulgences.
4. All Saints Day is a feast whereby we remember all those Christians who have departed this temporal life to be in the presence of Jesus in Paradise. What we confess by faith these saints experience in perfection: »I am with you; I am your God.« Our God promises us: »I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.« In today’s Gospel pericope Jesus declares: »You must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect« (Matthew 5,48). Alas, who is perfect but God alone? Who is righteous but God alone? Not even the saints were perfect when they lived upon the earth. What fate awaits us who are imperfect and unrighteous when we meet God face to face in His Full Divine Glory? That was the dilemma that young Friar Luther had struggled with. Part of Luther’s duties at Wittenberg University was to teach the Bible. He taught Romans, Galatians and the Psalms between 1514-17. We know he finally saw the light of the gospel when he properly understood what St. Paul had written in his epistle: »The righteous will live by faith« (Romans 1,17). The Psalms further assured him of this great Pauline declaration; the Psalmist tells us this morning: »God’s way is perfect; the Word of the Lord’s proves true; He is a Shield for those who take refuge in Him. He is the God who equipped me with strength and made my way perfect.«
5. The Lord had created mankind, Adam and Eve, in His Image and Likeness; He created them perfect and righteous. Their Fall into sin replaced that perfection with imperfection and original righteousness with original sin. Thus men and women throughout the ages have struggled with how to appease a righteous God. Religions and philosophies approach such appeasement from the ground up: we must ascend to God. Christianity and Judaism approach this appeasement from heaven downward: God descends to us. We see this first play out in Genesis 3: Adam and Eve attempt to appease God by hiding from Him, and making clothing from leaves, hoping He will not notice their sin and their nakedness, but the approach and appeasement rightly goes with God finding them, punishing them with the law but more importantly promising them a Savior who will redeem them. St. John tells us that Jesus is this Promise and Savior: »For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but He sent Him so that the world shall be saved through Him« (John 3,16-17). This Jesus has made our way perfect, blameless and righteous.
6. The Apostle Paul proclaims: »No one is righteous, no, not one, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, and all are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is JesusChrist, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith« (Romans 3,11.21-25). The Psalmist looked forward to the time when God would give us the Shield of His salvation, and His right hand to support us. Jesus is our Shield of salvation and the right hand of His Father who supports us.
7. Jesus declared: »You must be perfect (τελειοι), as your Heavenly Father is perfect« (Matthew 5,48); Jesus fulfills this for us. As Adam’s one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so also Jesus’ act of righteousness leads to righteousness for all men (Romans 5,18). You are now perfect through Jesus, as your Heavenly Father is perfect, and if you are perfect in God’s eyes, then you are saints, that is, holy ones.In 7 of his 13 epistles, the Apostle Paul addresses the Christians as saints; in the remaining 6 epistles the recognition that they are saints is implied. As such, Christians produce the saintly works that follow and flow from faith in Jesus. Such holy living was not mature in some instances, as the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians and Thessalonians testify, but the Christians strove to live as the saints Jesus had declared them to be. Each of us attest to the lives of these saints, as we are all at a different point in the journey of faith, but we all strive to be the Christians Christ Jesus has called us to be by grace through faith. The gospel assures us that every Christian participates in all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is granted to us by God (37. Thesis).
8. The Apostle Paul exhorts us: »Let us not grow weary of doing good, for as we have opportunity let us do good to everyone« (Galatians 6,9-10). Faith in Jesus Christ bears the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and gentleness (Galatians 5,22-23). »For freedom Christ has set us free« (Galatians 5,1) to be certain of our salvation which is given freely by G and received by faith, to love our neighbors and rejoice in the righteousness we have from Jesus Himself. Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Lord, who loves and justifies sinners; receive our hymns of praise for the gospel of Christ Jesus Your Son, so that by our joyous singing and loving deeds our neighbors may believe the redemption You have given to the world through Christ the Lord. 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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