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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is away on vacation. This morning for our reflection on today’s Second Reading, Pastor Galler completed a sermon outline by The Rev. Gaven M. Mize, pastor of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hickory, North Carolina. Rev. Mize’s sermon outline was published in the current volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (28:3, 41-43), to which publication Pilgrim subscribes primarily in order to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when our pastor is away and the congregation has not otherwise supplied the pulpit. The adapted sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Shakespeare wrote a line in his great work Henry IV that essentially lives on to this very day. Shakespeare wrote: “And in the calmest and most stillest night, with all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!” And here’s the line you may know: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (Part II, Act III, Scene 1). Over time, the last line has morphed into the following line: “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” You and I do not have to be Shakespeare experts to know a turn of phrase when we hear one! Heavy are the responsibilities of those who are chosen to wear the crown. Wearing the crown comes with glory and grief. Wearing the crown comes with an expected command of oneself and love for the people.
As what the Bible calls “the royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9, with references to Exodus 19:6; confer Revelation 5:10), you and I also wear a crown of glory given to us by Jesus. And, in one sense, we might say that heavy are the responsibilities of Christian love, charity, and a life lived anew in Christ’s righteousness. Christ commands that we be such things as tenderhearted to one another, forgiving one another, but not because we are so noble as to be kind. But rather, we love one another as Christ loved us. This morning we consider today’s Second Reading under that theme: “As Christ Loved Us”.
In that Second Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul essentially writes that we have learned Christ to be something very different from our loveless pasts. By nature, each one of us has an old self that is anything but loving: darkened in our understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in us. And so, by the sinfulness of our hearts, we want to give ourselves over to base desires. We covet what other people around us have. We gossip about other people. We fail to help other people improve and protect what they have. We indulge our lustful desires. We hate others, maybe appropriating God’s wrath as our own. We do not honor and obey those God puts in authority over us. We do not gladly hear and learn God’s Word and fail to make use of all of God’s Sacraments. We use God’s Name in ways that we should not, and we fail to use God’s Name in ways that we should. And, we do not fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
The Second Reading clearly gives us a warning from God about what happens when we hand ourselves over to our sinful desires. The Second Reading also warns us against not giving the devil even an inch, yet, by our evil deeds against God, we have given the devil miles and miles. What can we say for ourselves since we have truly not followed St. Paul’s words? We can say nothing for ourselves, but God calls us to repent: sorrowfully to confess our sins and believing to seek and receive His forgiveness for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ. St. Paul especially seems to be warning his recipients against hard-hearted impenitence. But, when we repent, then God forgives our sins, all our sins, whatever our sins might be. God forgives our sins for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
We can say nothing for ourselves, but Jesus Christ speaks for us. Jesus Christ loved us by standing between us and God the Father’s righteous wrath against us. God in human flesh, Jesus Christ stood between us and God the Father’s righteous wrath by dying for us on the cross of Calvary. Heavy indeed is the head that wears the crown, especially when that crown is made of thorns! Jesus Christ was offered up on our behalf as a final sacrifice and a fragrant offering to God the Father. Jesus Christ lived the life that we fail to live, and He died the death that you and I deserved. Yet, Jesus Christ did not remain dead, but He arose from death’s dark domain as the one and true Victor. Now, Jesus Christ lives and reigns for you and for me, and He enables us at least to begin to live the way that we should.
In C. S. Lewis’s well-known children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a story in the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which a very mean and cruel boy is turned into a dragon as punishment for giving himself over to his desire for gold and riches. After flying around as a dragon for some time, he finds Aslan, who in the books represents Jesus Christ. Aslan tells him to wash himself in a pool, but every time the boy washes himself, he remains the same old dragon. Aslan then tells the boy that he has to let Aslan undress him. Aslan rips the old dragon’s skin away until, there in the pool of water, stands a new boy with a changed heart. Similarly, in Holy Baptism, Jesus Christ puts off our old selves and puts on our new selves. At the Baptismal Font, the full and complete image of God that human-kind lost in our first parents’ fall into sin is restored, as we are re‑created in the likeness of God with true righteousness and holiness. We remember our Baptisms. We recall our old selves being put away and our new selves being wrapped around us like a watery-robe of righteousness. We, who were once dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5), have been washed in the sacred waters of Holy Baptism and have died the death of Jesus Christ, and, if we have died the death of Christ, then we also live to Him as He lives for us.
For that life lived to Jesus Christ, He Himself miraculously feeds us. In today’s First Reading (1 Kings 19:1-8), we heard how a messenger from the Lord miraculously fed Elijah with food sufficient for the journey that lay before him. And, in today’s Third Reading (John 6:35-51), we heard Jesus Christ, after miraculously feeding more than five-thousand men (Mark 6:30‑44; confer John 6:1-15), say that He is the Bread of Life, come down from heaven, to give His flesh for the life of the world, so that those who eat of Him will live forever. In the Sacrament of the Altar, bread miraculously is Jesus Christ’s Body and wine miraculously is His Blood, of which Body and Blood we eat and drink and so receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, As we said in today’s Psalm (Psalm 34), taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are those who take refuge in Him!
Through the Lord’s Word and Sacraments we learn of Jesus Christ, and the Triune God Himself lives and works in us. Jesus Christ commands a great deal from His people, but He does not leave us unequipped. All of our good works and love for our neighbor are done by the Holy Spirit through us. Since we are Jesus Christ’s own people, bought by His blood and alive by his resurrection, we put away all falsehood and speak the truth with our neighbors. In our anger, we do not sin, for example, we do not let the sun go down on our anger. Our vices are transformed to virtues! For example, thieves no longer steal but labor, doing honest work with their own hands, so that they may have something to share with those in need. No corrupting talk comes out of our mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. We do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption. We let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from us, along with all malice. We are kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgives us. In short, we are imitators of God, as beloved children, walking in love, “As Christ Loved Us”. Such perfection is fully expected, but in this life never achieved, so, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins.
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” we might paraphrase Shakespeare, all the more true, as we said, when the crown is a crown of thorns! But we never forget that Jesus’s crown of thorns was replaced with a glorious crown at His ascension. So also for us: heavy is the crown, yet light is the yoke of Christ in His forgiveness of our sins and our forgiveness of those who sin against us. As was the case for Christ, so also for us: the suffering and burdens we carry here and now will end and will pale in comparison to the glorious crowns that we receive in everlasting life.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +