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+ + + 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.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The Kilgore Rotary Club, of which many of you know I am a member, has a very‑orderly process of succession. We have a president now, and we also have not only the president-elect who will take over in this July, but we also have the president who will take over the year after that. A committee of former presidents always keeps that “second-in-line” position filled, to the extent the committee can find people willing to serve. Volunteers to serve in various capacities are seemingly harder and harder to find, as people feel they have more responsibilities with work and family and find themselves with less time to volunteer, for things like Rotary and even at church. Thanks be to God that we in the Church have been given, as tonight’s Second Reading reminds us, an eternal “Head over all things”. Thus the theme for this sermon: “Head Over All Things”.
The Second Reading is from the divinely‑inspired St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which letter he most-likely wrote while he was imprisoned in Rome the first time. Apparently having heard news from the churches he had founded after working so long and hard in Ephesus, he writes back a letter that is the fullest proclamation we have in the Bible of what the Church is. In the single-sentence from that letter that is our Second Reading, St. Paul tells the Ephesians how he thanks God and prays for them, making what at first might appear to be a passing reference to our Lord’s Ascension, which is why the Reading is appointed tonight.
In some ways our Rotary Club’s occasional difficulty finding someone to serve as president is a bit surprising. Many people often want to be in charge, grappling for power or authority within their workplaces, social groups, and families. We might even wrongly think that we are in charge when it comes to spiritual matters, when, in fact, as St. Paul makes clear in tonight’s Second Reading, nothing could be further from the truth. For example, St. Paul writes how he prays that the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—would reveal Himself to them, enlightening their hearts by nature otherwise darkened in their understanding. St. Paul further writes how God’s immeasurably great power works toward those who believe. Thus, we Lutherans believe, teach, and confess, that
“Scripture denies the intellect, heart, and will of the natural man every capacity, aptitude, skill, and ability to think anything good or right in spiritual matters, to understand [spiritual matters], to begin [spiritual matters], to will [spiritual matters], to undertake them, to do them, to accomplish or to cooperate in them …” (Solid Declaration II:12)
By nature, we not only are unable to cooperate with God in spiritual matters, but, by nature, we resist His efforts to enlighten our eyes and give us knowledge of Him. Instead of God’s dwelling in us as St. Paul describes, by nature the devil dwells in us.
Thus Jesus in our Third Reading (Luke 24:44-53) describes the Old Testament’s telling of the necessity for repentance and forgiveness of sins in His Name to be proclaimed to all people, and “all people” includes us—you and me. God calls us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. So, we repent. We repent of the things we think, say, and do that we should not, and we repent of the things we do not think, say, and do that we should. We repent of all of our sins, and we repent of our sinful natures. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. He forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, the necessity of Whose suffering and on the third day rising from the dead Jesus said the same Old Testament foretold.
Jesus is true man and true God—the whole fullness of the Deity dwells in Him bodily (Colossians 2:9), and His divine properties and attributes were given to Him as true man. Yet, Jesus did not count equality with God the Father a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8). And, Jesus did not stay dead! As St. Paul writes in tonight’s Second Reading, according to the working of God the Father’s great might, He raised Jesus from the dead. And, as we heard in tonight’s First Reading (Acts 1:1-11), after forty days of presenting Himself alive by many proofs to His followers and speaking about the Kingdom of God, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. Two angels told them Jesus was taken up into heaven, and the apostles knew from Scripture that Jesus—still true God and true man—was seated at the right hand of God (Mark 16:19), where, for example, Stephen later saw Him (Acts 7:55-56).
In tonight’s Second Reading, St. Paul writes that as God’s great might worked in raising Christ from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, so that immeasurably great power works toward us who believe. That immeasurably great power gives us faith that believes that Jesus died for us, and so that immeasurably great power gives us the forgiveness of sins. That immeasurably great power increases our faith and preserves us in the faith, even as it works the fruits of faith in our lives, for example, love toward all the saints, as St. Paul describes the Ephesians having. Even though God’s power is immeasurably great, when it operates through God’s Word in all its forms, it can be resisted, and so not all people are converted. Those who are not converted only have themselves to blame for their failure to be converted, just as we who are converted only give the glory for our conversion to God, as St. Paul in our Second Reading glorifies God for the enlightenment of the Ephesians.
Even we who have been enlightened are still probably prone to think of the right hand of God as a fixed place in heaven, perhaps even wrongly thinking of it as a place where Jesus is somehow confined. Even if we recognize that the right hand of God is more of a figure of speech, we might wrongly limit its meaning to being a “seat of honor” and not a “throne of divine power” (Solid Declaration VIII:28). St. Paul writes that God the Father exalted Jesus and put all things under His feet and gave Him “head over all things” to (or for) the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. Truly Jesus is in some sense present everywhere according to both His divine and human natures, but He is only present to give us faith and the forgiveness of sins where He promises to be: in His Word in all its forms, including Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. Those who truly are part of the Church, the Body of Christ, will seek and receive Him and all His gifts in these ways. Holy Baptism enlightens us and makes us God the Father’s children, adopting us and enabling us to receive the riches of His glorious inheritance. Jesus’s God and Father becomes our God and Father, and we ourselves pray to Him, “Our Father”, asking as dear children ask their dear Father. We adopted children and heirs seek His forgiveness for the sins that trouble us most from those He calls and ordains to forgive them. Indeed, individual Holy Absolution is one of the ways that the gift that is the Office of the Holy Ministry builds up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12). The unity between Christ, our Head, and ourselves, members of His churchly body, is further nurtured by our receiving His sacramental body and blood, truly present, distributed, and received in, with, and under the bread and wine of Holy Communion. In all these ways our Ascended and Enthroned Lord, Who fills all things in every way, blesses us with the forgiveness of sins and so eternal life.
As we heard in the First Reading, Jesus, Who was taken up into heaven, will come again in the same way that the apostles saw Him go. We who live every day with repentance and faith do not dread but look forward to His coming again, for, by God’s very-orderly succession, He is “Head Over All Things” for our benefit. So also His coming again is for our benefit. Then we will fully appreciate the hope to which He has called us and the riches of His glorious inheritance for us His saints. Until then, He Who has been exalted far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come, will continue to work His great might, His immeasurably great power, toward us who believe. Because all things are under His feet and He has been given as Head over all things to (or for) the Church, nothing is now—or ever will be—able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39).
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +