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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.
Concerned about a united military defense against a force threatening to invade, the emperor called together territorial and city leaders in order to discuss their religious differences, which religious differences had emerged in the more than twelve years since the Reformation began with The Ninety-Five Theses in 15-17. The political leaders turned to their theologians, who eventually drafted a confession of faith that was signed, presented, and read aloud on June 25, 15-30, 491 years ago today, in the city of Augsburg in what is now Germany. What became known as the Augsburg Confession emphasized the Lutherans’ agreement on some points with the Roman Catholic Church of their day, but the Augsburg Confession also identified the Lutherans’ differences from Roman Catholic teaching, as well as the Lutherans’ differences from the teaching of the other opponents of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the Anabaptists and the Reformed. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther reportedly said the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession was a fulfillment of Psalm 119 verse 46 (Pfatteicher, Festivals, 259), which was used as the Appointed Verse tonight, “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.” The presentation of the Augsburg Confession then certainly also was in keeping—as both the Confession’s continued use now and our commemoration of its Presentation tonight is in keeping—with Jesus’s statement in the Gospel Reading that He will confess or deny before His Father Who is in heaven whoever confesses or denies Him before people on earth.
That statement in the Gospel Reading comes as somewhat of a conclusion to Jesus’s teaching His followers, including us, not to fear anyone other than our Heavenly Father, Who cares a great deal for all of us who follow Jesus and who ultimately reveals and makes known all things. Implicitly, such fear might arise from the persecution of His followers that Jesus, in the immediate context of St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account (Matthew 10:16-25), had said would come, for example, when His followers’ opponents, including members of their own families, handed them over, and they were dragged before governors and kings on account of Jesus, in order to bear witness, even to the point of death, before those officials and all who do not believe. Jesus said not to fear such persecutors but to confess Him and so to be confessed by Him.
Now, at least not yet, Jesus has not expected us to confess Him in precisely the same way that our Lutheran forebearers did, presenting the Augsburg Confession in answer to an emperor’s desire for religious unity. But, Jesus does expect us to confess Him in other ways, including by our making the Augsburg Confession our own confession of faith, as we do at least officially by being members of this congregation. Like the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds before it, the Augsburg Confession is solidly based on the Bible, and it is still relevant in our time, both in the Confession’s positive statements about what we believe, teach, and confess, and in its negative statements about what we do not believe, condemn as false teaching, and deny to be true. Yet, how often do we fail to confess and so deny our Lord as it pertains to the content of the Augsburg Confession? For example, do we fail to confess and so deny our Lord in regards to original sin and its making us unable to save ourselves by our own reason or strength? Do we fail to confess and so deny our Lord in regards to His incarnation or His suffering and dying for us and all people? Do we fail to confess and so deny our Lord in regards to infant Baptism, individual Absolution, or closed Communion? To be sure, we sin in these and in countless other ways, and so we deserve both temporal death and eternal punishment.
To spare us the eternal punishment, God, out of His great love for the fallen world, sent His Son to become incarnate of the Virgin Mary and, in our place, to die on the cross for our sin. Jesus confessed before people Who He was, what He was doing, and how He was doing it, and He was put to death. Jesus bore witness, even to the point of death, the Divinely-inspired St. Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 6:11b-16)—bore witness of the good confession, the truth of His identity as God in human flesh, His work of saving us from our sins, and His Means of Grace, how He gives us the fruits of His cross. In other words, Jesus bore witness to the content of the faith that we in turn believe, teach, and confess, as in the Augsburg Confession. God’s Word is intended to lead us to repent and believe as it did in today’s Old Testament Reading (Nehemiah 8:1-12) with the people of Israel, who humbly bowed their heads and with their faces to the ground worshiped the Lord, the greatest of which worship is seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins in the ways that He promises to give that forgiveness. When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive our sin. God forgives our sin of failing to confess and so denying Jesus. God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
God forgives our sin in the ways that He promises to forgive our sins, namely, through His Means of Grace, that is, through His Word in all of its forms. God’s Word is read and preached to groups such as this one, and His Gospel is applied individually with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of Holy Communion that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. As Jesus said in tonight’s Gospel Reading, what the apostles and their successors in some sense heard “whispered” in their ears they proclaimed on the housetops. Such preaching leads to both the belief in the heart and the confession with the lips that save (Romans 10:9-10; confer Luther, AE 46:175). Timothy, to whom today’s Epistle Reading was primarily addressed, no doubt made the same good confession of faith, that is to say, Timothy confessed the content about Jesus, both at Timothy’s baptism, when he became a Christian, and at his ordination, when he became a pastor and eventually a co-worker with the Apostle Paul (confer 2 Timothy 1:6). Likewise at our own baptism we each confess the Triune God Who puts His Name upon us at our own baptism, and we also confess that same Triune God every time we speak the three “ecumenical” Creeds that countless generations of Christians have used, including when we speak such creeds in connection with the Sacrament of the Altar, which is itself in some sense a confession of Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:26).
But, transformed by God through the forgiveness of sins that He gives us by His Means of Grace, we also confess the Triune God in other ways, such as through our membership in this congregation and our accompanying subscription not only to the Augsburg Confession but also to the Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, and to all of the other Lutheran Confessions contained in The Book of Concord. Even at the risk of family members’ wrongly taking offense, we do not deny but confess original sin and its making us unable to save ourselves by our own reason or strength; we do not deny but confess Jesus’s incarnation and His suffering and dying for us and for all people; and we do not deny but confess as faithful practice infant Baptism, individual Absolution, and closed Communion. In every way possible, we fight the good fight of the faith, holding to faithful teaching and practice against not a literal military invader but against the spiritual forces of darkness and evil, living with daily repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins, and trusting that nothing happens to us without the knowledge and at least consent of our caring Heavenly Father, before Whom, on the Last Day, Jesus will confess us who so confess Him now and so bring all things to light with His triumphant truth (confer Revelation 3:5; confer Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 10:26, p.203).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +