Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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!)
In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask our Father in Heaven for His Kingdom to “come” to us (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2), especially as the Holy Spirit leads us to believe His Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity (Small Catechism III:7-8). In the so‑called “Common Table Prayer”, we ask the Lord Jesus to “come”, “be our guest”, and bless what He has given us (for example, Lutheran Witness). In today’s Second Reading, we hear both Jesus three times say that He is “coming soon” and the Church respond in prayer, either simply “Come” or “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” Today’s Second Reading moves from the book of Revelation’s final description of the new sky and ground as the New Jerusalem with its “restored” Garden of Eden to the book of Revelation’s Epilogue that repeats and emphasizes themes such as good’s ultimate triumph over evil and the Lord Jesus’s imminent final coming (confer Revelation 2:16; 3:11). In a special Sunday-morning sermon-series titled, “Resurrection and Revelation”, Pastor Adler and I have been focusing on those Second Readings drawn from Revelation this Easter Season, and so today, as the series concludes, our theme is “Jesus is coming soon”.
Today’s Second Reading can be a challenge for us to listen to because of its five different speakers—John, an angel, Jesus, the Spirit and the Bride, and the one who hears—five speakers who are not always identified as speaking and so are subject to debate and various interpretations. Today’s Second Reading can be a challenge for us to hear also because the Lord Jesus said nearly two‑thousand years ago that He was “coming soon”, and He still has not yet come the final time in glory to judge the living and the dead. We can remember that God is outside of time and that we are inside of time (confer TLSB, ad loc Revelation 22:6, p.2235). We can reflect on how things that we want to end sooner seem to go on longer and how things that we want to go on longer seem to end sooner. And, we can note that the Greek adverb variously translated as “soon” (confer NIV84) or “quickly” (KJV, ASV, NASB95) can mean “quickly” in the sense of “at a rapid rate”, or it can mean “quickly” in the sense of “without delay” or “at once”, or it can mean “soon” in the sense of “in a short time” (BAGD, 807). Yet, perhaps none of those things really helps our problem of understanding correctly what the Lord Jesus said.
Certainly, any problem understanding correctly what the Lord Jesus said is our problem, and it may be the least of our problems. We may not want Christ to come: sooner, later, or ever! By nature we are sinful, and so we sin, and so we are accursed and deserve to be separated from God for eternity, kept out of the New Jerusalem with its “restored” Garden of Eden (confer Genesis 3:14-19, 22-24), along with, as we heard in the Second Reading, the dogs—perhaps male prostitutes in particular, or the ceremonially impure in general—sorcerers—who could be habitual users of drugs and various potions—the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Whoever fails in one point of the law is guilty of all of it (James 2:10). When the Second Reading says, “let the evildoer still do evil, and let the filthy still be filthy”, we might think of those whom God has given over to their evil ways and filthy beings (TLSB, ad loc Revelation 22:11, p.2236, with reference to Romans 1:26-31), but we perhaps better hear God’s urgently calling us to repent and so to be among the righteous whom He tells still to do right and the holy whom He tells still to be holy (Franzmann, ad loc Revelation 22:14, p.145; Roerhrs-Franzmann, ad loc Revelation 22:11, p.302; Brighton, ad loc Revelation 22:10-11, pp.645-646).
As we know from elsewhere in Holy Scripture, Jesus became a curse for us by hanging on the tree of the cross, redeeming us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13; confer Romans 8:3 and Galatians 4:4-5) and so, resurrected, He has opened to us again, as we heard in today’s Second Reading, the way to the Tree of Life. Jesus is the Lamb standing, as though it had been slain (Revelation 5:6). In today’s Second Reading, Jesus has the titles “the Alpha and the Omega” and “the beginning and the end”—titles otherwise given to God the Father (for example, Revelation 21:6)—and Jesus is said for the first time in Revelation to be seen sitting on the same throne as God the Father, to which throne the Holy Spirit is close by (Revelation 4:5). As true God, Jesus is not only the root of David, but Jesus is also the descendant of David, as true man (for example, Isaiah 11:1, 10). Jesus is the Bright Morning Star, the long-promised Messiah, the Christ, the Savior (Numbers 24:17 and Isaiah 60:3). Because of God’s love, mercy, and grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, through faith in Him, we have a share both in the Tree of Life, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations, and in the Holy City, which we enter by the gates. So, even already now, we have peace and joy.
Unlike prophecy once given to Daniel (Daniel 8:26; 12:4), the prophecy given to St. John is left unsealed, readily available, for the time of its fulfillment is near. We do not add to or subtract from but “keep” or “treasure” the words of Revelation and of all of Holy Scripture, and so we are blessed. Whether a heavenly or human messenger, such as Matthias chosen in today’s First Reading (Acts 1:12-26), we know that those whom Jesus sends declare His testimony for the benefit of His churches still today. Indeed, here in His Church we find the water of life, whether figurative of salvation or literal of Holy Baptism (confer John 4:7-15; 7:37-39). Either way, we take of it for free. At the Baptismal Font, God’s Triune Name is graciously put upon us, and we receive the sign of the holy cross both upon our foreheads and upon our hearts to mark as those redeemed by Christ the crucified (for example, Lutheran Service Book 268). Whether or not we receive a literal white garment, we are clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covers all of our sin (confer Revelation 7:14). As food was perpetually available in the Second Reading, so bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood are here available each Sunday and on other festivals of every month of every year—available to those who have been examined and heard in private confession and individually absolved (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXIV:1). In all of these ways, the Ascended Christ is still present with us in order to forgive our sins until He comes in glory.
“Jesus is coming soon”. We pray for Him to hasten His coming (TLSB, ad loc Revelation 22:17, p.2236), even to come right now (Brighton, ad loc Revelation 22:20-21. p.657). His coming humbly once and His coming repeatedly in His Word and Sacraments assure us of His coming in glory a final time. So imminent is His coming that we urgently invite others to come partake of His salvation by repentance before it is too late. When He comes, He will judge all the living and the dead on the basis of their works as evidence of their faith or the lack thereof, giving those who believe the reward that He earned for them on the cross. Then, we, who will no longer be slaves of sin but only slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:12-23), will worship not His messengers (confer Revelation 19:10) but Him who sent them. Purged of sin, we will be able to see His face directly and to be in His nearer presence (confer Exodus 33:18-23), that is, we will be with Jesus where He is, as Jesus Himself prayed in today’s Gospel Reading (John 17:20-26).
“Jesus is coming soon”, even, we might add with a nod to the Small Catechism (confer Small Catechism III:7, 10, 13), without our prayer. Still, Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon,” and, led by the holy Spirit, we in the Church that is His Bride pray, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
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 + + +