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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.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Simply put, in today’s First Reading, those of the apostles’ and believers’ circumcision party at first criticized Peter for going to uncircumcised men and eating with them, presumably food forbidden by the Old Testament ceremonial food laws, but then, Peter’s explanation, including the Word of God, silenced those of the circumcision party’s criticism of Peter and began their praise of God. The Word of God that granted repentance that led to life when received by the man named Cornelius and the other Gentiles in Caesarea also settled the conflict over the Gentiles’ inclusion in the Church. So we can say, as I have themed this sermon, that “God’s Word settles Church conflict”.
Of course, there really was nothing new with the idea that God wanted Gentiles included in His Church. For example, through the prophet Isaiah, God had said that the nations of Gentiles would come to Israel’s light (Isaiah 60:3; confer Isaiah 49:6), and so, holding the 40‑day‑old Jesus, St. Simeon in the Spirit called Jesus a light for revelation to the Gentiles (Luke 2:32). The grown-up Jesus identified Himself as the light of the world (John 8:12), and He sent His disciples to make disciples of all nations, by baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, by teaching them to observe all that He had commanded them (Matthew 28:19). And, indeed, the book of Acts records both, immediately before today’s First Reading, Peter’s work among the Gentiles (Acts 10:1-48), and, immediately after today’s First Reading, Paul’s work among the Gentiles (Acts 11:12-26).
To be sure, thanks in part to passages of God’s Word such as today’s First Reading, not to mention a later arguably similar “council” in Jerusalem that included statements by both Peter and Paul (Acts 15:1-31), the inclusion in God’s Church of both Jews and Gentiles, with or without circumcision, is not really a matter of Church conflict today. However, at the time of the Reformation, for example, other ceremonies or works were expected for salvation, and, on the basis of God’s Word, the Lutheran Reformers were careful to believe, teach, and confess both that no one could merit salvation by any ceremony or work and that some ceremonies or works nevertheless should be retained in the Church for the sake of such things as good order, the building up of the body of Christ, and faithfulness to the Lord’s commands.
As pastors and people, we believe, teach, and confess both that the canonical Scriptures are the inspired Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice and that Lutheran Confessions agree with the one Scriptural faith. So, we are to conform to Scripture and the Confessions all that we do, especially the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Do we know Scripture and the Confessions well enough in order to conform to them, both what they say and what they mean, as if there is a difference? Do we retain the ceremonies and such that should be retained for the sake of good order and the building up of the body of Christ? Do we practice Closed Communion in faithfulness to the Lord’s commands? Do we avoid both a legalism that suggests works righteousness and a freedom that causes people either to sin or to fall from faith? If we do not fail in those ways, then we certainly fail in other ways. By nature we all are sinful, and so we all sin, and so we all deserve present and eternal punishment. But, out of His love, mercy, and grace, God gives to us, as those of the circumcision party described God’s giving to the Gentiles, repentance that leads to life. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to stop sinning, then God forgives us: our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
In today’s First Reading, we heard how an angel reportedly told Cornelius that Peter would declare a message by which Cornelius and all his household would be saved. And, indeed, Peter told them: how God the Father anointed His Son Jesus with the Holy Spirit; how Jesus went about doing good; how the Jews put Jesus to death on the cross; how God the Father raised Jesus on the third day and made Him to appear to those who had been chosen as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead; how they were commanded to preach to the people; and how everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through His Name (Acts 10:38‑43). Those Gentiles received, or “welcomed”, that Word of God and were baptized and arguably ate together (Acts 10:47-48), and so they were saved, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When we likewise welcome that Word of God, then we likewise are saved. We are saved as the Holy Spirit both is given to us through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments and works faith that, when we believe, then God is gracious to us for Christ’s sake (Augsburg Confession V:1-4).
For perhaps most people, Holy Baptism is their entrance into the Church. The Holy Spirit uses water and the Word, no matter someone’s age. In the First Reading, Cornelius and all his household were baptized and saved: him, his family with his children, his slaves with their children, and any individuals whom he employed with their children. So, whether we are eight days old, eight years old, or eight decades old, God for us works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe the words and promises of God about Holy Baptism. Thus, the Baptismal Font can be regarded as what the Second Reading called the spring of the water of life (Revelation 21:1-7), from which all who are baptized in some sense drink (1 Corinthians 10:1-4). For the sake of individual Holy Absolution, some of those who have been baptized privately confess to their pastors the sins that they know and feel in their hearts. And, those so absolved are admitted to the Holy Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so they give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. At this rail, Jesus, despite criticism similar to Peter’s that Jesus received during His ministry for doing so—Jesus nevertheless receives sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:1-2).
God’s Word and Sacraments forgive and transform us who repent. As we will confess in the Collect of the Day, He makes the minds of His faithful to be of one will. Still, the events of today’s First Reading did not completely prevent later conflict between the apostles and Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity (for example, Galatians 2:11-14), including conflict over the Old Testament ceremonial food laws, as we hear, for example, in Romans (Romans 14:1-23), and so, not surprisingly, neither will our transformations completely prevent conflict between pastors and people over other things. But, as was the case with the apostles and believers in today’s First Reading, “God’s Word settles Church conflict”. We do not expect ecstatic visions or miraculously speaking in languages that have not been learned, but, through God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions based on His Word, the Holy Spirit works, as Jesus described in today’s Third Reading, to guide us into all truth (John 16:12-22). So, we together read and study God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions; we together preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments in keeping with God’s Word and the Lutheran Confessions; we together live in God’s forgiveness of sins for when we fail to do so and repent; and, as possible, like those of the circumcision party in today’s First Reading, we let God lead us from unjustly criticizing one another to praising God together. Today’s Office Hymn, for example, implicitly connected our being united in Christ and raising a united song to the Triune God (Lutheran Service Book 569:5‑6), and today’s Closing Hymn will describe our praise’s speeding His honor by word and deed to every land and nation (LSB 483:3).
Today’s Additional Psalm (Psalm 148:1-14; antiphon v.13) calls all creation to praise God together. In humankind’s fall into sin, all creation was subjected to futility and so now groans as in the pains of childbirth, waiting to be set free from its bondage to corruption (Romans 8:19-22; confer Genesis 3:18-19). But, as Jesus in the Third Reading promises, that sorrow will be forgotten when it turns to joy. God, as we heard in the Second Reading, makes all things new, including the sky and the ground. As we sang in the Psalm, the Lord has raised up a horn of salvation for us His people, for praise for all His saints, whether from the people of Israel or from the Gentiles who are near to Him (confer Luke 1:69 and Keil-Delitzsch, ad loc Psalm 148:14, p.409). Together we say “Alleluia!”, or “Praise the Lord!”, now and forever!
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 + + +