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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.)
Our Lord Jesus Christ once asked His disciples Who they said that He was, and, led by the Holy Spirit, Simon Peter answered that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (for example, Matthew 16:15-17). All too soon that answer seemed insufficient in the face of false teaching about Jesus and His inter-Trinitarian relationships to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and so creeds like that creed which we know as the Apostles’ Creed came to be used in connection with Holy Baptism. In 381, a version of what we know as the Nicene Creed was adopted, and, later still, the Athanasian Creed came into use. Those three creeds are called “ecumenical”, from a Greek word referring to the whole inhabited world. The Augsburg Confession, the presentation of which we commemorate today, in some ways the “birthday” of the Lutheran Church, might be thought of as less “ecumenical” and more “particular”, especially given its original reading in the German language, on behalf of the seven noblemen and two free cities who initially signed it, at a meeting of leaders in the Holy Roman Empire, held in a city of what we today know as Germany. However, the Augsburg Confession arguably is also ecumenical, given both that the Augsburg Confession also confesses the same faith as the three ecumenical creeds and that, since its Presentation, the Augsburg Confession also has been confessed by people across the whole inhabited world.
The people who originally appointed the Readings that we have used for this commemoration clearly saw a connection between Dr. Christian Beyer’s public reading of the Augsburg Confession on June 25, 15‑30, and Ezra’s public reading of at least parts of the book of the Law of Moses for six hours on the Feast of Trumpets, with the visible support of apparently thirteen laymen (including some who apparently later signed the covenant) and also thirteen Levites (who repeated, translated, or explained what Ezra read), all as we heard described in today’s Old Testament Reading (Nehemiah 8:1-12; confer Leviticus 23:24). Likewise, the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession is connected to St. Paul’s reminding his coworker Timothy in Ephesus about his good confession and charging him to keep the “commandment” unstained and free from reproach, as we heard described in today’s Epistle Reading. And, likewise, the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession is connected to our Lord’s saying that everyone who confesses Him before people He also will confess before His Father Who is in heaven, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading. Tonight, focusing primarily on the Epistle Reading, we direct our thoughts to the theme “The good Augsburg Confession”.
Obviously, all followers of Christ are called to confess Him, so when St. Paul refers Timothy to Timothy’s previous good confession, presumably at his baptism, and charges Timothy to keep the “commandment” unstained and free from reproach, what St. Paul writes by Divine inspiration to Timothy applies also to us, who each also arguably has made a good confession at our baptism, and each reaffirmed a good confession at our confirmation, and maybe also when we transferred to a new congregation or otherwise joined a congregation by profession of faith. By our membership in Pilgrim, we confess not only the three so‑called “ecumenical creeds” and the Augsburg Confession, but we also confess the other Lutheran confessional writings contained in The Book of Concord, which in a sense are largely commentary on the Augsburg Confession. I have taught through the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, or “defense”, several times for our adult instruction courses, and there is an ongoing occasional study of them when I am away and an elder leads our Sunday Adult Bible Class. But, do you know what those writings say, or do you even want to know what they say? What kind of a confession of Christ are you making through them?
Too often we are unwilling to make the good confession in the presence of any witnesses, because we do not want to stand out as different, either from our family, friends, and coworkers who do not believe as Lutherans believe or from those who believe nothing at all. Like Simon Peter before our Lord’s crucifixion we may say that we will not deny our Lord, but then, like Simon Peter, in one way or another, we do deny Him (Matthew 26:34-35, 69-75), risking our Lord’s denying us before His Father in heaven (confer Matthew 7:22-23; 25:12), and so consigning us to eternal torment in hell, as we deserve on account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins. But, thanks be to God, like the people in the Old Testament Reading who wept as they heard the words of the law condemning their sin but were sent in the joy of the Lord by His Gospel of forgiveness (confer 2 Kings 22:11, 19), the Holy Spirit leads us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sin of not confessing but denying Him, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our actual sin and our sinful nature for Jesus’s sake.
As St. Paul noted in the Epistle Reading, God the Father gives life to all things. And, as St. Paul wrote elsewhere, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law—in other words, all people!—so that we might receive adoption as sons. So, the Father sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, leading us in faith to cry out to God for forgiveness. That Son of God in human flesh (confer 1 Timothy 3:16), Jesus in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, St. Paul said in the Epistle Reading (confer Matthew 27:11-12; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John 18:36-37). Jesus not only sealed His testimony of Who He is with His blood but also so enacted His good confession of Who He is as our Savior, dying on the cross for us, in our place, and then rising from the dead. As St. Paul writes to the Romans, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved (Romans 10:9‑10). So, we are justified, saved, as we believe and confess Jesus’s lordship and resurrection with “The Good Augsburg Confession”.
On the basis of Holy Scripture, the Augsburg Confession says that in order to obtain such saving faith, God instituted the ministry of teaching the Gospel and handing out the sacraments (Augsburg Confession V:1). Not only would Timothy have made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses at his baptism, but, in all likelihood, he also would have made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses at his ordination, as he became one of those ministers of Word and Sacraments (confer 1 Timmothy 1:18; 4:14). In the Epistle Reading, St. Paul charges Timothy to keep the “commandment” unstained and free from reproach, and that “commandment” is understood as the faith delivered to Timothy, just as Jesus told Timothy’s predecessors, the apostles, to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that Jesus had “commanded” (Matthew 28:19-20; confer Lenski, ad loc 1 Timothy 6:14, p.721), including, in the contents of St. Matthew’s Gospel account, Holy Baptism (Matthew 28:19), private Holy Absolution (Matthew 16:19; 18:18-20), and the Holy Supper (Matthew 26:26-29), all three of which Sacraments, not surprisingly the Augsburg Confession also confesses (Augsburg Confession IX, X, XI), and so all three of which Sacraments we also confess as we confess the Augsburg Confession!
Forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, like Timothy, we pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. We fight the good fight of the faith, and we note that hidden in that English translation is the “agony” of both athletics and warfare (confer Luke 13:24; 2 Timothy 4:7). As we will do this Sunday in our next Special Congregational Study, we learn about our good confession of faith and how it applies to the errors that we face in our church body and in society. We try to keep our good confession, in both teaching and practice, unstained and free from reproach, until either our deaths or the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will display at the proper time. Until then, as we heard Jesus say three times in the Gospel Reading, we do not need to fear any earthly persecutors. As Jesus did, we can speak of His testimonies before anyone, including religious and secular officials, and not be put to shame (Psalm 119:46), for, as we sang in the Psalm (Psalm 46:1-11; antiphon: v.7), the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Confessing Jesus may be more involved now than it was when Jesus first asked His disciples Who they said that He was, but God leads us to confess Jesus, by way of “The good Augsburg Confession”—which remains, as it was in 1530, a sound statement of the Biblical truth and a proposal for true unity, never withdrawn or successfully refuted. And, as we live with daily repentance and faith, God also forgives us when we fail to make the good confession as we should. As St. Paul wrote in the Epistle Reading, to God be honor and eternal dominion.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +