John 15,9-12 5123
21. Trinitatis 68 Reformationsfest 78
Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, Dating for Easter 195. ✠ 216
Narcissus, Bishop of Gerona in Spain, Martyr 307 (Diocletian, 284-311/12; persecution 302-11)
29. Oktober 2023
1. ℣ The whole world is in Thy power, O Yahweh, King Almighty:
℟ There is no man that can gainsay [deny] Thee (Esther 13,9).
O Yahweh, our Dwelling Place; You created the world and provide daily for us, so that we continually acclaim and praise You to be the Everlasting God. Amen. (Psalm 90,1-2 Gradual)
2. »Jesus said: „Just as the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; abide in My love. If you shall keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. I have spoken these things to you so that My joy is in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone shall lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave doesn’t know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for I have made known to you every thing that I have heard from My Father. You didn’t choose Me, but I chose you and I appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you may ask of the Father in My Name He shall give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.“«
3. One of the prominent themes of the Lutheran Reformation is the love of God in Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us on the cross to save us from our sins and to reconcile us to our Heavenly Father. This message had not been lost in the early 16. century, but it had become obscured to the point that many pious Christians relied on the saints and their own good works to find certainty of God’s forgiveness. Martin Luther had been one such Christian, and like many he found these works did not bring comfort to his guilty conscience.
4. The Reformers emphasized the Scriptural teaching that we are justified by grace through faith and not by good works (Ephesians 2,8-9). So powerful and persuasive was this gospel proclamation that within 13 years, by 1530, the Reformers were accused of forbidding good works (AC XX,1). This was a false accusation, but it prompted further clarification from the Reformers: 1. We teach that our works cannot reconcile God or merit forgiveness of sins, grace and justification, but that we obtain this only by faith in Christ (1. Timothy 2,5; AC XX,9). 2. We teach that it is necessary to do good works, not that we should trust to merit grace by them, but because it is the will of God that we do good works (AC XX,27-28). 3. Good works ought necessarily to follow faith; when by faith we have received the Holy Spirit, the fulfilling of the law necessarily follows, by which love, patience, chastity and other fruits of the Spirit gradually grow (Apology XX,92).
5. The 21. century world is not all that different from the 16. century world. Works still dominate our thinking. Many operate in a mechanical way: if I do x then y will follow; if I do x + y x z then the desired, prescribed answer will unfold. Most people admit they are not perfect: they have wronged God and their neighbors. The common response is: each wrong must be balanced out with something good. The goal of such a ledger book approach is to complete one’s life with more good credit than sinful debit, or at least break even. Another common response is, for lack of a better word, magick. Such people attempt to manipulate or control their reality by doing things in a precise order so that the end result appeases God, the universe or karma. The question often unasked is: how do I know this or another approach truly appeases God? The answer is: well, you don’t know; and in fact, such approaches cannot and will not appease God because He has establish a method of forgiveness and appeasement that is not devised by man or woman.
6. How do I know God forgives me; how do I know He isn’t angry with me; how can I be certain G loves me? These were the sort of questions Luther and others agonized over in the early 1500s. The default understanding 500 years ago was God is angry with me; how do I appease His holy wrath? The answer the Reformation gave was the old Scriptural answer that had gotten clouded over: Christ; Christ is how Gs anger and wrath is appeased. Christ crucified is God the Father’s method of forgiveness and propitiation. Sin must be atoned and paid for. Christ took our sin, bled for it and died for it on the cross. He bore the sin of every person, satisfied His Father’s wrath and redeemed us before Him. Martin Luther wonderfully states it in his explanation of the 2. Article of the Creed: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the Devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.
7. Jesus taught His disciples: »No one has greater love than this: that someone shall lay down his life for his friends« (John 15,15). Jesus tells us that God unconditionally loves us (αγαπαω), that He is our friend, that He forgives us; all of this is steadfast and certain. You can know this and be certain of this because of Christ; He gives us forgiveness through Baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Absolution; this certainty is read from the Scriptures and preached.
8. In the 21. century the default understanding is that God is loving, but too often people do not know why He is loving. The answer the Reformation gave to the angry God dilemma also applies to the loving God dilemma. God’s merciful steadfast love is found definitively in Christ crucified. He does not desire any man, woman or child to be separated from Him. Christ arrived to find the lost and restore them to His Heavenly Father. This love is received in the Word and Sacraments.
9. The Apostle John saw in his Revelation an angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people (Revelation 14,6). This gospel is still preached throughout the world 2000 years later. The Holy Spirit creates faith through the gospel of Christ crucified, from this faith springs forth love and good works. In all this Christ is glorified.
10. In his 1520 essay The Freedom of a Christian, Luther wrote: „ We conclude, then, that a Christian must not live in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor, or he is not a Christian, he lives in Christ through faith and in his neighbor through charity: through faith he is raptured up above himself into God, again through charity he descends below himself into his neighbor. still always remaining in God and his charity, as Christ says in John 1,51: ‘Truly I say to you, hereafter you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’“ (WA 7,69.12-18) [1]
11. O King Jesus Christ,
Prince, Captain and Hero,
Through all eternity
Chosen of the Father,
Born a Son of David:
Your kingdom endures forever,
Which God had sworn to You,
Spoken by His Spirit.
(O König Jesu Christe selk 397,1 2021 Wilhelm Thomas 1933 nach Leonhard Roth 1539)
This is most certainly true.
12. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen.
13. Let us pray. O God, the Lord and Leader of the hosts of the blessed, instruct us in spiritual warfare, arm us against all foes visible and invisible, subdue unto us our own rebellious affections and give us daily victory in the following of Him who vanquished sin and death and now goeth forth with us conquering and to conquer. Amen. (21. Trinity, Vespers Collect 1. The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House.)
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 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover.
1 Concludimus itaque, Christianum homineni non vivere in seipso, sed in Christo et proximo suo, aut Christianum non esse, in Christo per fidem, in proximo per charitatem : per fidem sursum rapitur supra se in deum, rursum per charitatem labitur infra se in proximum, manens tamen semper in deo et charitate eius, Sicut Christus lohan. 1. dicit ‘Amen dico vobis, deinceps [John 1,51] videbis coelum apertum et Angelos dei ascendentes et desceudentes super filium hominis’. (WA 7,69.12-18)
