Sermons

+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +

Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

I remember when I became a latchkey-kid, not in the negative sense of a child who is left home with no parental supervision for a long period of time, but more in the sense of a child who returns home from school to an empty home because his parents are away at work. When I was in fourth grade, my mother went back to teaching, and so, when we got home from school, my sister and I had to let ourselves into the house with a key for the door latch, which key one of us wore strung around our neck. Our parents talked to us a lot about how responsible we had to be with the key, trying both not to let people know we had it and not to lose it, because the key could grant anyone access to our home.

A key that grants access is part of the “Key of David” name for Jesus that we consider tonight, as we continue our focus on four of the so-called “O Antiphons”, liturgical pieces addressed to Jesus that have been used for centuries, before and after Mary’s Song, in Advent Vespers services close to Christmas. Last week I introduced the O Antiphons and the hymn they were later incorporated into, and we focused on Jesus as “Wisdom from on high”. Locate tonight’s O Antiphon, either on the outside front cover of your service folder or inside at the bottom of the first page. Let us pray it the way we will sing it in a bit, with the congregation taking the indented portion.

O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, You open and no one can close, You close and no one can open:
Come and rescue the prisoners who are in darkness and the shadow of death.

Another part of the “Key of David” name for Jesus and tonight’s O Antiphon is somewhat understanding both heaven and hell as respective kingdoms, or land, or cities, or fortresses—or, in the case of hell, a prison. In this understanding, both heaven and hell have doors or gates, and whether or not the doors or gates, especially those of heaven, are open or closed determines whether one is granted or refused a share of salvation. Keys, obviously, would be used to open or close the doors or gates, and—like my sister’s and my, as kids, having the key to our house—those keys would be in the hands of someone who has responsibility for granting access to the kingdom, land, city, or fortress. Of Holy Scripture’s few mentions of “keys”, we find a couple of ordinary, earthly uses, but the rest are references to special, spiritual uses of keys, such as to the keys to the kingdom of heaven or hell.

What determines in which kingdom one finds oneself? What determines to which kingdom we are granted access? What determines whether or not you and I are saved? Like tonight’s O Antiphon, the Psalm excerpt we read refers to those “in darkness and the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons”. The Psalm excerpt makes clear that they are there because “they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High.” You and I rebel against God and spurn His counsel when we sin, and we sin in countless ways each and every day. Breaking one commandment in thought only is like breaking that same one commandment in thought, word, and deed. And, breaking one commandment is like breaking them all. As St. Paul wrote of himself to the Romans, we do not do the good we want to do, but the evil we do not want to do is what we keep on doing. Sinful by nature, we are slaves to sin, prisoners of sin. On account of our sin, we deserve eternal death and separation from God in the presence of the devil. We are in need of rescue from sin, death, and the power of the devil.

The First Reading tonight tells of the Lord’s judgment on Shebna, who was over the entire domestic affairs of the king at that time. Apparently filled with pride, Shebna was going about preparing to be buried among the kings and likewise teaching the people to proudly trust in their own security, instead of reminding the people to look to God. From what we can tell, Shebna failed to repent and so was cast down from his position and presumably banished from the kingdom, with the key of David placed upon the shoulder of Eliakim instead. In the Third Reading, Jesus similarly promises that at His final coming He will repay each person according to what he has done. But, in the Psalm excerpt, those “in darkness and in the shadow of death … cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart.” Unlike impenitent Shebna, but like the people in the Psalm excerpt, you and I should repent. We should turn in sorrow from our sin, and we should trust God to forgive our sin. When we so repent, God truly forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God the Father forgives our sins for Jesus’s sake.

To paraphrase the Office Hymn, Jesus, as the Key of David, comes to open wide our heavenly home, to make safe the way that leads on high, and to close the path to misery. This story is our story, and it has all the action of a good superhero movie or video game, though without the special effects or the 3-D graphics. We can picture Jesus as the Stronger Man Who enters into the home of a strong man, binds him, and takes what is His own. If we imagine all the Old Testament believers waiting in hell until Jesus’s death on the cross, then, with Dr. Luther, we can picture Jesus with a cape descending to hell and storming it, breaking hell’s gates and destroying them. We can picture Jesus as a victorious hero, with a standard in His hand, beating and driving out the devil. Such pictures of Jesus destroying hell’s power and taking the devil’s might from him to bring out His own help us remember what Jesus did on the cross for us.

As we heard Peter confess in the Third Reading, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. But, we also heard that confessing Jesus as the Christ is not enough, without also believing that He had to suffer, be killed, and on the third day be raised in order to save you and me. As the Son of the Living God. But, Jesus also in some sense has the keys to hell because Jesus with His death on the cross defeated Death and Hades for us. As a result, Jesus has the keys of authority over both kingdoms, to decide whether or not we have access to salvation. We no longer need to be afraid of death or hell; we can rejoice instead. Our closing hymn puts it this way:

We can rejoice because Jesus has the keys of authority over both kingdoms, to decide whether or not we have access to salvation, and we can rejoice because we know that He grants us that access to salvation in ways that we can hear, feel, see, and taste. Jesus is no longer walking the earth as He once did, but Jesus has entrusted the exercise of His keys to faithful stewards, like Eliakim in our First Reading. Jesus in our Third Reading adopts a then-current expression when He says He is giving the keys of the kingdom of Heaven to Peter, as a representative of all the apostles. Peter, the other apostles, and their successors are placed into what we thus call the Office of the Keys. So, we hear Jesus grant us access to salvation as men in the Office of the Keys proclaim the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We feel Jesus grant us access to salvation as those same men pour water combined with God’s word over us in Holy Baptism. There at the Baptismal Font He Who has the Key of David writes on us the Name of God. We see Jesus grant us access to salvation as those same men forgive our sins as individuals in that same Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And, we taste Jesus grant us access to salvation as those same men in the Office of the Keys give us bread that is Jesus’s body and wine that is His blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. We call our practice of the Lord’s Supper “closed communion” in part because the church once dismissed those who were not to receive it before closing and locking the doors to the place where it was received. In these ways that we can hear, feel, see, and taste, Jesus Himself grants access to salvation by giving the forgiveness of sins, and, in these same ways, Jesus Himself builds His church on the office that, like Peter, confesses Him to be the Christ.

All of us who want to follow Jesus should make that same confession of Jesus as the Christ. But, we should not think that following Jesus is going to mean we have a glorious or glamorous life. In our Third Reading, Jesus speaks of denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and losing our lives for His sake. Do those sound glorious or glamorous to you? They are surely not glorious and glamorous from the world’s point of view. Such sacrifice and self-denial are undoubtedly part of the reason why few find the narrow way and door of heaven, behind which is the never-ending marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom. As we live each day in sorrow over our sin and with faith that God will forgive our sin, we can be sure that He Who is the Key of David will grant us access to His Kingdom and to that never-ending feast. To that end, we again pray tonight’s O Antiphon responsively:

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +