Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: John 3,14-21. Reminiscere

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

John 3,14-21 1819

Reminiscere 025; 2. Sonntag der Passionszeit „Remember“

Patrick, Apostle to Ireland, ✠ mid to end 5. century

Gertrude, Virgin, Abbess of Nivelles, Belgium. ✠ 659

17. März 2019

1. O God, You are merciful and full of loving-kindness, remember us who daily struggle with our sin, so that by the power of Your gospel through the working of the Holy Spirit we are delivered out of all troubles. Amen. (TLH Introit for Remeniscere)

2. »As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave his Only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but should have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but sent Him in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the Only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the Light has entered the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the Light and does not enter the Light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true enters the Light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.«

3. In the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus connected His ministry to Moses’ ministry. This ministry is a ministry of eternal life. In Numbers 21 (c. 1407 bc) the Israelites had become inpatient, spoke against God and Moses and accused them of bringing them out of Egypt into the wilderness to die (Numbers 21,4-5). God punished the Israelites by sending fiery serpents into their midst bit people and now people were dying (Numbers 21,6). The people confessed to Moses their sin and asked for deliverance from the serpents (Numbers 21,7). God told Moses: »Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live« (Numbers 21,8). Jesus used this event to teach that He must be lifted up like the bronze serpent was lifted up.

4. We all have felt the bite of the Fiery Serpent, the Devil, who through the snake tempted Adam and Eve to sin against God. We bear the curse of the poison of that Serpent in our bodies, for this original sin results in death. In spite of our sinfulness, God is merciful to us. He promised Adam and Eve a Savior from the Serpent, someone who would redeem and deliver humanity from the curse of sin and death. Jesus proclaimed that He is this promised Savior: »For God so loved the world, that He gave His Only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but should have eternal life.«

5. Many religions deal with the nature of sin and human beings. How do we reconcile ourselves to God? How do we cancel out our debt of sin? There are over 1 billion Hindus in the world. Hinduism revolves around the concept of dharma, which involves a way of living in harmony with the universe. By doing so, one helps enable social order, moral conduct and virtuous living. To undo the bad karma in one’s life, Hindus believe that they will be reincarnated again and again after they die to replace the bad karma with good karma, and when they have finally removed all their bad karma, then their soul is one with the universal soul or with God.

6. There are also over 1 billion Muslims in the world. Muslims believe Allah is merciful and one must submit to him and his will. Muslims stress that performing good deeds and avoiding sin is important, thus they submit to Allah by pursuing the 5 Pillars of Islam: 1. there is only Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet; 2. pray 5 times a day facing Mecca; 3. fast during Ramadan; 4. give money to charity and 5. make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Submitting to these tenets and trusting that Allah is merciful, a Muslim expects to be saved.

7. All religions focus on the person to merit forgiveness of sin. Only Christianity proclaims a message that God has done everything for the sinner and has paid the ransom price in full to redeem the sinner. Thus, John 3,16 is the gospel in a nutshell and is the foundation of every proper sermon: God the Father loves the fallen world and has thus sent His Son to bring eternal life to the world. As Jesus taught: »God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but sent Him to save the world.« To ground the certainty of salvation on anything other than the merit of Christ who went to the cross as our Savior is to build one’s certainty upon sand. Jesus spoke of this in the Gospel according to St. Matthew: »Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods rose, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the its fall« (Matthew 7,24-27).

8. If our certainty is not grounded upon Christ, then uncertainty of our salvation easily takes hold in our conscience. Luther experience this and wrote about it. „First I saw this well, namely, that the free gift is absolutely necessary for obtaining the light and the heavenly life, and I worked anxiously and diligently to understand the well-known statement in Romans 1,17: »The righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel.« Then I sought and knocked for a long time (cf. Matthew 7,7), for that expression »the righteousness of God« stood in the way. It was commonly explained by saying that the righteousness of God is the power of God by which God Himself is formally righteous and condemns sinners. This is the way all teachers except Augustine had interpreted this passage: the righteousness of God is equated to be the the wrath of God. But every time I read this passage, I always wished that God had never revealed the Gospel—for who could love a God who is angry, judges, and condemns?—until finally, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, I weighed more carefully the passage in Habakkuk (2,4), where I read: »The righteous shall live by his faith.« From this I concluded that life must come from faith. In this way I related the abstract to the concrete, and all Holy Scripture and heaven itself were opened to me. At this time, however we see that great light very clearly, and we may enjoy it richly. But we despise and disdain this jewel and heavenly treasure. Accordingly, if one day it should be taken away again, we shall cry and knock once more, as Christ says about the foolish virgins in the parable (cf. Matthew 25,11). But we shall cry and knock in vain. Therefore let us fear God and be grateful. Above all, however, my own example and the example of others should move you. We lived in death and hell and did not have the blessing so abundantly as you have it. Therefore occupy yourselves diligently with the doctrine of the blessing, and think about it, in order that you may be able to keep it yourselves and also to make it known to others. As for ourselves, we have done our duty“ (Luther 158; LW Vol. 5; WA 43,537).

9. We do well to remember the gospel as Luther exhorts is to, for it tells us God loves us, has mercy on us and forgives us on account of Christ. This gospel separates Christianity from all other religions, and the cornerstone of the gospel is Christ Jesus. Those who stumble over and reject Christ do so to their peril, for whoever does not believe in Christ is condemned but those who believe in Christ are saved through Him.

10. Jesus declared: »I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life« (John 8,12). Christ promises us that He brings us and restores us to fellowship with our Heavenly Father; Christ promises us that we can be certain that our Heavenly Father is merciful because the Son of Man has graciously saved us from God’s wrath. Christ is the certainty of our salvation „Anyone who regards God the Father as angry is not seeing Him correctly, but has pulled down a curtain and cover, more, a dark cloud over His face. But in Scriptural language „to see His face“ means to recognize Him correctly as a gracious and faithful Father, on whom you can depend for every good thing. This happens only through faith in Christ“ (Luther 37; LW Vol. 31).

11. Thus we confess with St. Patrick:

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me. Amen.

12. Let us pray. O Jesus Christ, the Crucified Savior who died for sinners; keep our hearts and minds focused on You, the gospel made flesh, so that we daily remember that God loves for us. 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, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Thursday, March 21, 2019

John 3,14-21. Reminiscere

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