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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.
How many times, would you say, Jesus comes? Maybe twice? A first time some two‑thousand years ago in humility in order to save us, and a second time at an unknown future point in glory in order to take us to be with Him forever (John 14:3)? If Jesus comes only those two times, what about the rest of the time? Is Jesus gone in such a way that He has left us to ourselves? This last Sunday the new Church Year began with the season of Advent, a season that emphasizes repentant preparation for Jesus’s comings to us, not only the celebration of His past coming in humility and the anticipation of His future coming in glory but also His coming to us now, for He is not gone in such a way that He has left us to ourselves. In our Midweek Advent Evening Prayer services this year, my special sermon series is themed “The Lord comes to us now through His Means of Grace”, and tonight we focus especially on “The Read and Preached Word”.
The term “Means of Grace” is not explicitly found in the Bible, but the Bible certainly knows and uses the concept of “Means of Grace”, that is, of things that actually convey grace and give the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, by which not only the Holy Spirit but also Christ Himself comes to dwell in us (see, for example, Romans 8:9-10). More specifically, the “Means of Grace” are God’s “Word and Sacraments”, with “Sacraments” understood as God’s Word combined at His command with things that we can feel, see, and taste, by which we receive the forgiveness of sins and the like.
When we think of God’s Word and Sacraments, we may think of the Third Commandment, that to remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy, which, based solidly on the Bible, the Small Catechism has us understand as meaning that, “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it” (SC I:6). God’s “Word” includes His Word in its sacramental forms, though tonight we are focusing on “The Read and Preached Word”. Yet, limiting our focus to “The Read and Preached Word” does not make any easier our thinking that somehow we have properly kept the Third Commandment. In fact, too often we demonstrate that we despise the reading and preaching of God’s Word by not regarding it as holy and by not gladly hearing and learning it. Like the people of Israel whom God addressed through Isaiah in tonight’s First Reading (Isaiah 55:1-13), who spent their money for that which was not bread and their labor for that which did not satisfy, we may while away our time, maybe even on Sunday morning, reading, listening to, and viewing media that are not solidly based on the Bible, if they have anything at all to do with the Bible. Like so many others in our society, even we may think that we can be “spiritual” without being “religious”, that, unlike a hand or foot severed from the human body, we somehow can have a relationship with God and survive apart from His Church where His Gospel is purely preached and His Sacraments are rightly administered (Augsburg Confession VII:1). In another of the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church like the Small Catechism, we believe, teach, and confess both “that God will not deal with us except through His external Word and Sacrament” and that “Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such Word and Sacrament is of the devil” (Smalcald Articles III:viii:10; confer Pieper, III:133-137). So, we realize that, as the First Reading put it, our unrighteous thoughts and wicked ways are not God’s thoughts and ways; that, in the words of the Second Reading (Romans 10:1-21), we are disobedient and contrary people; that, on account of our sinful nature, we do not, in the words of the Third Reading (John 1:1-18), know and receive Him Who comes to us, indeed we cannot, on our own, but instead, separated from Him, we deserve death and eternal damnation.
We are unable to come to God, so instead God comes to us. In the First Reading we heard His compassionate and enabling invitations to come where He has made Himself near and to hear. In the Second Reading, the Divinely-inspired St. Paul says that we do not have to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, or descend into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead, for the word is near us (citing Deuteronomy 30:14). The Third Reading said that the Word, God’s expression of Himself (TLSB, ad loc John 1:1, p.1777), existed from eternity, distinct from God the Father, yet sharing His Divine nature, and that Word in time came into the world, becoming flesh (“incarnate”) and dwelling among people. That Incarnate Word is the means of grace and truth, making known God the Father and fulfilling His plan of salvation for us. Out of God’s great love for us, that Incarnate Word died on the cross for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. That Incarnate word is the “end”, in the sense of the “fulfillment”, of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. As yet another confessional writing of the Lutheran Church puts it, working through the Means of Grace, the Holy Spirit creates faith when and where He pleases, in those who hear the Gospel that we have a gracious God, by the merit of Christ, when we believe this (Augsburg Confession V:2-3). Enabled by God, we come to Him, calling on His Name, and He has compassion on us, abundantly pardoning us all of our sins, as through His read and preached Word received in faith.
His read and preached Word is where we seek and return to Him, for the Incarnate Word is also the “in-scriptur-ated” Word. In the First Reading, God said that His Word that goes out from His mouth does not return to Him empty but accomplishes that which He purposes and succeeds in the thing for which He sent it. As St. Paul says elsewhere, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). God’s Word is always efficacious, even if in some cases it may not effectively result in salvation (confer Scaer, CLD VIII:111), for His Word can also be a means of judgment (John 12:48). In the Second Reading, we heard of the “causal chain” of sending preachers so that people can hear, believe, call on the Name of the Lord, and be saved. And, in the Third Reading, John the Baptizer certainly is an example of one who bore witness so that all might believe. The Office of the Holy Ministry itself is instituted for the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments (Augsburg Confession V:1), and so the successors to John, Jesus, and His apostles rightly devote themselves to the public reading and preaching of Scripture (1 Timothy 4:13). Those who hear that public reading and preaching (confer Scaer, CLD VIII:114) in turn believe in their hearts and confess with their lips and so they are saved, and God can use their public confession as He leads others also to be saved.
Not just twice does the Lord come, a first time in the past and a second time in the future, but “The Lord comes to us now through His Means of Grace”, and He so comes repeatedly, being present and abiding with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 18:20; 28:20). The Lord’s past comings are the guarantee of His present and future comings, even as they are also what enable us to look forward to His final coming, not with fear and dread, but with joy and peace. Tonight we have considered the Lord’s coming and presence in “The Read and Preached Word”, and in weeks to come we will consider each of the Word’s sacramental forms. We once more repeat to the Lord the antiphon of tonight’s Additional Psalm (Psalm 119:105-112; antiphon: v.111): “Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +