Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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 David, other fellow‑holders of the Office of the Holy Ministry, Brothers and Sisters in Christ of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, and other invited guests and friends,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am honored that you asked me to preach on this occasion, David. Getting to know you the past two-and-a-half years that you have been a part of Circuit #14 has been my privilege and pleasure, especially as I have appreciated our shared devotion to God’s Word and Sacraments, to the Lutheran Confessions, and to the Church’s liturgy and hymns. Of course, God’s Word and Sacraments, the Lutheran Confessions, and the Church’s liturgy and hymns all are geared toward what is reflected in the theme for this sermon, based on the verses from St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account just read, namely, “That repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name.”
Either on the evening of the first day of the week on which Jesus revealed Himself as risen from the dead, or some time later during the other 40 days before His Ascension (Acts 1:3), Jesus, as we heard, opened the minds of His followers, at least ten of the Twelve and others (Luke 24:33); He enabled them to understand how all the Old Testament Scriptures must be fulfilled. Those Scriptures say that the Incarnate Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name (confer Luke 24:26‑27). God’s will to save all people, expressed in His Word given through Moses, the prophets, and the psalmists and other writers, brought about not only Jesus’s suffering and resurrection, but God’s will to save all people also brings about Jesus’s working through His Church to apply those saving merits, even to us here today, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Palestine, Texas.
If we were a church that taught salvation by works, then Rev. Adler might be in good shape: after all, for more than two decades he served as a Pastor in Texas; then for five years he served as Campus Chaplain at Concordia University, in Ann Arbor, Michigan; then for seven years he served vacancies in Florida part-time while caring for his aging parents—all that before moving back to Texas, first being a part of the congregation here at Bethlehem, Palestine; then serving as her vacancy pastor; and finally, after an appropriately thorough call process, being elected as the congregation’s next called pastor. But, of course, we are not a church that teaches salvation by works, and, Brothers and Sisters in Christ of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, if you have not already realized, then you will realize when the “honeymoon” is over, that your Pastor‑Elect is a sinner just like the rest of us. Even if he somehow managed to do all that he was commanded to do, in the end, he, like the rest of us pastors, would still have to say we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty (Luke 17:10).
Now, of course, your Pastor‑Elect also will soon realize, if he has not realized already, that all of you are sinners, too. By nature we all are sinful and unclean; we all have sinned against God and each other, in thoughts, words, and deeds; and so we all justly deserve present and eternal punishment. I expect that you will be hearing those kinds of things from Rev. Adler in the weeks, months, and years to come, for he takes seriously enough his role as a watchman for this congregation that he at least picked both the Old Testament Reading that he did (Ezekiel 33:7‑9), which speaks of warning the wicked of their death at the risk of his own soul, and the Epistle Reading that he did (2 Corinthians 4:1-7), which renounces disgraceful and underhanded tampering with God’s Word. Now, apart from faith in Jesus Christ we cannot understand that Word, law or Gospel, but our Lord opens our minds to understand the Scriptures and brings about the change of mind and heart that is repentance: sorrow over our sin, trust in God to forgive our sin, and at least a desire to stop sinning (see Solid Declaration II:26; V:8).
Our Omniscient God did not have to realize that we are all sinful, but He knew from eternity how humankind would be lost in sin, and He knew what He would do about it. God’s eternal will to save all people led to His speaking through Moses, the prophets, and the psalmists and other writers that the Incarnate Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed. The God‑man Jesus Christ is at the very center of Holy Scripture: in a sense, everything is written about Him. So, Christ crucified is also at the center of the Church’s proclamation (1 Corinthians 2:2), because without His crucifixion and resurrection we would still be in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better than to keep on sinning, then God graciously forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin, including our sinful natures, by grace for Jesus’s sake through faith.
In order for us to obtain such faith, God instituted the ministry of preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments (Augsburg Confession V:1), the Gospel in tangible forms. In all its forms, the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness of sins in the Name of the Triune God is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). As we are baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; as we who privately confess the sins we know and feel in our heart are individually absolved in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and as we who are so absolved are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar to receive bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood—as the Gospel is applied to us individually in all of these tangible ways, we have what the proclamation says: namely, the forgiveness of sins. So forgiven, this Bethlehem congregation honors God and His institution of the Office of the Holy Ministry, going through an appropriate call process and this day installing Rev. Adler, who received the promise of the Father at his ordination in 19-79.
Much earlier, on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after our Lord’s Resurrection, those present on that occasion received the Holy Spirit and witnessed of all the things from the baptism of John to Jesus’s Ascension (Acts 1:22). Beginning in the capital city of Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria (the equivalent of the combined kingdom under Saul, David, and Solomon), and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8), they proclaimed repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’s Name (for example, Acts 2:38), using that Name in their liturgical worship, from the Invocation to the Benediction, and repeatedly in between, for there is no other Name under heaven by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12).
Now, David, and Brothers and Sisters in Christ of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, your witnessing is a little different, though not in the case of the liturgy! Your witnessing is confessing Jesus’s suffering and resurrection, in this community, not only within these walls, but by word and deed to all the people with whom the Holy Spirit brings you into contact. Be mindful of the change in your relationship that today’s Installation brings, along with the resulting changes in your challenges and joys. Fulfill all of your duties and obligations that you shortly will hear, both to God and to one another, and, with repentance and faith, live in His forgiveness of sins for all of the times that you will fail God and one another. Despite we pastors being jars of clay (or, as is sometimes said, “cracked‑pots” or even “crackpots”), God’s eternal will expressed in Holy Scripture, “That repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name”, even here at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Palestine, Texas, will be fulfilled, as He wills, to the glory of His Holy Name.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +