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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. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!)
Christ is not only risen, but, as we celebrated this past Thursday evening, He is also ascended! Yet, Jesus did not stop being present with His Church, rather Jesus changed the way that He is present with His Church. For example, Jesus stopped personally walking around calling people to repent and believe (for example, Mark 1:15), and instead Jesus’s apostles personally walked around calling people to repent and believe. As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, an excerpt from Jesus’s so‑called “High-Priestly Prayer”, uniquely recorded by the Divinely-inspired St. John, on the night when He was betrayed, Jesus prayed for all of those, like us, who believe in Jesus through the apostles’ word. Specifically, Jesus prayed both that we may be one, even as the Father and the Son are one, and that we also may be in them, for the purpose of the world’s believing, for the purpose of the world’s believing specifically that the Father sent the Son and loved the world, even as the Father loved the Son. Considering the Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “Our Divine unity leads the world to know God’s love in Christ”. Let me repeat that: “Our Divine unity leads the world to know God’s love in Christ”.
We might ask: what Divine unity do we have? Certainly we see the society around us seemingly becoming more and more polarized, whether on the abortion issue, gun control, human sexuality, or other things. Even different religious traditions are divided into liberal and conservative groups, with some individuals and congregations from one old church body presently leaving to form yet another new church body, and Lutheranism is no exception to that division along liberal and conservative lines, nor is the Missouri Synod, the Texas District, this Circuit, and perhaps even our own congregation. The societal and church issues can further fragment our families, which already may be fractured by separation or divorce, or by other family factions and alliances. And, when we honestly consider our individual lives, we see that by nature we are separated from God by sin. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus says that the world does not know the Father, and that ignorance of the Father would still be true of us, if not for God’s calling and enabling us to repent and believe through the apostles’ word, which word is no less than God’s Word, the Gospel, the Good News of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, by which Word the apostles themselves came to believe (John 17:8; confer John 20:31).
We come to believe in Jesus through the apostles’ word, and we believe specific things about Jesus, including the Father’s sending Jesus and so the Father’s loving us, even as the Father loved Jesus before the foundation of the world. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit truly are three Blessed Persons of the one Holy Trinity, but how exactly that math works remains a deep Divine mystery! Likewise, though the three Blessed Persons share one Divine Substance how only the Son took on a human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary remains a deep Divine mystery. No less of a deep Divine mystery is how only the Son died on the cross for the sins of the whole world and then rose from the grave. Yet, mystery or not, what the apostles’ word reveals, that we believe! When we are moved by the Spirit to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust the Father to forgive our sin for the sake of His Son, then the Father does forgive us, our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. Jesus makes it possible for the love with which the Father has loved Him to be in us, and Jesus makes it possible for Jesus Himself to be in us.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all come to us and dwell in us through the apostles’ word, in all of the Word’s forms. The Word is read and preached to groups, such as this group. And, the Gospel is applied to individuals, such as each one of us, with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you. In Holy Baptism, the same Triune Name is put upon each one of us, with His sign of the cross upon our foreheads and hearts, marking us as those redeemed by Christ the crucified. In Holy Absolution, our pastor forgives our sins in that same Triune Name, and, in the Sacrament of the Altar, we feed on Jesus’s flesh and drink His blood, and so we abide in Him, and He abides in us (John 6:56). In all of these ways, we receive the forgiveness of sins, and so we are saved and have eternal life. In all of these ways, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are in us, and so we are in them, united with them and united with one another, in a Divine unity of a sort.
“Our Divine unity leads the world to know God’s love in Christ”, or at least that “Our Divine unity leads the world to know God’s love in Christ” is part of Jesus’s “High-Priestly Prayer”. Believers before us had such a Divine unity that we were led to know God’s love in Christ, and God certainly can and does unite us so that others also can be and are led to know His love in Christ. Our Sacramental union with God is essential, as essential also is our abiding in God’s Word. There are no other equally-valid sources of truth or faith, only God’s Word. The Lutheran Confessions correctly expound God’s Word, and so the Lutheran Confessions themselves can and do norm our teaching and practice. Pilgrim’s pastor and people are solemnly bound to both God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions. We may also voluntarily submit ourselves to the Synod’s Brief Statement, to Synodical and District constitutions and bylaws, to convention resolutions and commission rulings, but not if those contradict Scripture and the Confessions. For, at stake is the world’s coming to know God’s love in Christ.
In us, the unbelieving world is to see the love of the Father that gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). Our sinful divisions over personality or other trivial matters certainly can give the world reason not to believe. However, our holy divisions over teaching and practice are necessary, so that those who are genuine among us may be recognized (1 Corinthians 11:19). As long as we remain in the sinful flesh, our unity in some sense will be imperfect and incomplete, and so, with daily repentance over our disunity and all our other sins and with ongoing faith in Christ, we live in both the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and the forgiveness of sins that we receive from and in turn extend to one another. God’s gift of forgiveness transforms and unifies us and lets the world see His love for them in Christ. We point to the truth of His Word and Sacraments as we, with gentleness and respect, give others who ask us the reasons for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus said that He had given out the glory that the Father had given to Him. In this life, that glory is hidden under such things as the cross, water, touch, and bread and wine. But, in the life to come, when we in the fullest sense are with Jesus where He is (confer John 14:3), then we will see and experience the full revelation of His glory (confer Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, VIII:65). Until then, as Jesus prayed, so we pray, that “Our Divine unity leads the world to know God’s love in Christ”.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +