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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.
We probably have heard others say, or we maybe even have said ourselves, something like, “My god would not leave unbelievers in hell for all eternity,” or “I cannot believe in a god who condemns people for loving whomever they want to love,” or any number of other similar statements, objecting to whatever aspect of the Christian faith with which they or we might disagree, because it is politically incorrect, or goes against our own personal value system, or some other reason. In objecting to an aspect of Christian teaching with which we disagree, we are like Peter in today’s Gospel Reading for the Second Sunday of Lent, who says that Jesus is the Christ but who then objects to what Jesus’s being the Christ means, so much did Peter object that Jesus told not only the disciples but also the crowd, and tells us, what it means to follow Him. This morning we consider the Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme, “Christ defines faith in Him”.
Jesus solicited Peter’s statement on behalf of the disciples about Jesus’s identity, and Peter’s saying that Jesus is the Christ certainly was better than other people’s saying that Jesus was John the Baptizer, Elijah, or one of the prophets, all of whom were preparatory and so came before the Christ (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Mark 8:28, p.50) and at this point would have had to miraculously re‑appear. Jesus strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ, perhaps in part because of false ideas about the Christ, like those that seemingly even Peter had. In contrast, and maybe as if to correct those false ideas (Voelz, ad loc Mark 8:31, pp.616, 626-628), Jesus began to teach the disciples that He must suffer many things, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. But, Peter apparently would not be corrected and privately began to “rebuke” Jesus, as Jesus had “strictly warned” the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ (the same verb is used in the original Greek). So, Jesus “rebuked” Peter for Peter’s and the other disciples’ benefit, and Jesus also called the disciples and the crowd to deny themselves, including their false ideas, take up their crosses, and follow Him. “Christ defines faith in Him.”
Do we completely deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus? Or, are we ashamed of Jesus and instead deny Him? What false ideas do we have about such things as open versus closed communion, whether or not we need to commune, or whether or not we even need to come to church? Are we so concerned with saving our lives in this world, as from a disease that kills less than two-percent of those whom it infects, that we risk losing not only our church membership here and now but our lives in the world to come, if we have not already lost them? Jesus arguably knew then and certainly knows now what risks we face in following Him, whether from a contracted disease, from friends’ ridicule, or from government persecution, and He did not make any exceptions for those things or label any of His teaching as optional. “Christ defines faith in Him.”
Jesus warns that, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, He will be ashamed of whoever is ashamed of Him and His Words in this adulterous and sinful generation. By nature, you and I are a part of that adulterous and sinful generation, a generation described elsewhere as also wicked, perverse, depraved, corrupt, and unbelieving. Even as believers, we continue to sin, whether by not denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Jesus or in countless other ways. We realize that we do not do better, as we should, with keeping God’s Commandments. We deserve the eternal judgment that Jesus describes, except that God calls and enables us to repent of our sin and then forgives us our sin for Jesus’s sake.
Your forgiveness, my forgiveness, and the forgiveness of everyone else who has ever existed, exists now, and will ever exist, was why Jesus’s suffering, being rejected, being killed, and rising again were both Divinely necessary and fulfilled by Jesus. The Son of Man is the Son of God, and on the cross He died for you and for me, in our place, the death that we deserved. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 5:1-11), God shows His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and, since we are justified by His blood, we are saved by Him from the wrath of God. You want to know Who Jesus is? Look there, on the cross! You want to know what Jesus did for you? Look there, on the cross. “Christ defines faith in Him.” “God is known on His own terms, not ours” (Beckwith, CLD III:181). Like Peter, who not only essentially denied Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading but who also denied Jesus three times later and yet still was forgiven when he repented, when we repent of our denying Jesus and all our sin, then God forgives us our sin for Jesus’s sake. By faith we are justified and have peace with God; by faith we have obtained access into the grace in which we stand. As spiritual descendants of Abraham by faith, we in a sense stand under the covenant that we heard about in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 17:1-7, 15‑16), an everlasting covenant of blessings to generation after generation.
You want to know how to receive those blessings? Well, you cannot go to the cross literally, but you can come to His Word in all of its forms, especially the Sacraments: Baptism, Absolution, and Communion (confer Luther, AE 40:213-214). In today’s Gospel Reading there is the closest of connections between Jesus and the Gospel, between Him and His Words. “Christ defines faith in Him.” In His Word and Sacraments, He reveals Himself as Christ crucified (confer 1 Corinthians 1:23), gives us the blessings of His cross, and enables us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. In Baptism, the sign of the holy cross that we receive upon our forehead and upon our hearts marks us as those redeemed by Christ the crucified (Lutheran Service Book 268), and so at the font His cross begins to shape our lives. Our crosses are the sufferings that we experience as Christians living our faith in this world (Pieper, III:69). When we know and feel in our hearts, both our failures to bear our crosses and our other sins, we privately confess those failures and our other sins to our pastors, for the sake of individual Absolution, and then we also are admitted to Communion, where we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In most cases, that Sunday Communion to Sunday Communion to Sunday Communion is the weekly “rhythm of the saints”.
So forgiven, we deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Christ. Vaccinated or not, we resolutely accept our own deaths and allow Christ to establish us as His disciples (Schlier, TDNT 1:471). We do not do so only during Lent (Nielsen, CPR 31:2, p.18), but do so daily (Luke 9:23). We believe, teach, and confess the Gospel and all of its articles (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration X:31), in word and deed, including by our church membership. We might even say with the Rev. Dr. Luther that we hate ourselves and love our neighbors (Luther, ad loc Galatians 5:15 [1519], AE 27:355‑356; confer Luther’s Scholia ad loc Romans 15:2, AE 25:512). As Simon of Cyrene helped carry Jesus’s cross (Mark 15:21), we might help our neighbors bear their burdens (Galatians 6:2; confer Scaer, CLD VIII:9). And, we rejoice in our sufferings, for, as we heard again in the Epistle Reading, they produce endurance, character, and hope that does not disappoint.
“Christ defines faith in Him”: Who He is, what He does, and how we receive the blessings of what He does. And receive those blessings we do now, until He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, who will gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of earth to the ends of heaven (Mark 13:27).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +