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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.
Everyone who acknowledges, or “confesses” (KJV, ASV, NASB95), Jesus before people, He will “confess” before His Father Who is in heaven, we hear our Lord Jesus promise in tonight’s Gospel Reading, and immediately after we hear Him warn that whoever denies Him before people, He also will deny before His Father Who is in heaven. Four-hundred ninety-five years ago this day, initially six individual rulers and the mayors and councils of two free cities in what we today know of as Germany confessed—did not deny but confessed (confer John 1:20)—Jesus at a meeting with their emperor in the city of Augsburg. Thus known as “The Augsburg Confession”, their statement of faith, written chiefly by Philip Melanchthon and based solidly on Holy Scripture, was presented that day by being read aloud, not unlike the reading of the Book of the Law of Moses in today’s Old Testament Reading (Nehemiah 8:1-12), and their statement of faith can be described as a “good confession”, like that for which St. Paul commended Timothy in tonight’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 6:11b‑16). Other good “Lutheran” confessions soon followed: the Apology (or “Defense”) of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Formula of Concord (in the forms of both its Epitome and its Solid Declaration). Those, along with both the earlier three Ecumenical Creeds and the Small and Large Catechisms, were collected into The Book of Concord, published some fifty years after the presentation of the Augsburg Confession. Still today, The Book of Concord’s contents are part of the good confession of Jesus made by both Pilgrim’s pastor and Pilgrim’s members.
In the time between the New Testament and the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, circumstances of controversy precipitated new creeds and confessions of Jesus, just as circumstances of controversy also precipitated new creeds and confessions of Jesus in the time between the presentation of the Augsburg Confession and the publication of The Book of Concord. Since then and still today, circumstances of controversy have precipitated and still precipitate both confessions of Jesus and making and breaking the fellowship of the Holy Supper. For example, over the past nearly three years, we at Pilgrim have considered such matters as church usages (that is, liturgy and hymns); law and Gospel; the Sacrament of the Altar; unity and fellowship; ministry; public condemnation of public sin; and ecclesiastical supervision and dispute resolution.
How do we as pastor and people confess Jesus against such errors in practice, if not also in teaching, that have infiltrated the fellowship of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and arguably at least to some extent deny Jesus? Or, do we not so confess Jesus and instead deny Him by our silence over those errors? If we do so deny Him, of what are we afraid? Unrest in the congregation? Having to refinance the Parish Hall loan? Losing members and their offerings? God’s not providing Pilgrim pastors in the future? Those and other things may be legitimate concerns, but they hardly rise to the level of the life‑or‑death persecution that Jesus described in the verses before today’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 10:16-25), which persecution Jesus nevertheless tells us not to fear in today’s Gospel Reading. Those presenting the Augsburg Confession figuratively, if not literally, put their necks on the line (confer Dallman, CTM 1:4 [April 1930], pp.242-243). Are we un‑willing to do far less? God’s judgment against such unwillingness and against all of our other sins and against our sinful natures themselves may be covered or hidden now, but God’s judgment will be revealed and known one day. As Jesus said, we should not fear even those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but we should fear Him Who can destroy both soul and body in hell, which destruction happens if Jesus denies us before His Father Who is in heaven.
Thanks be to God, that He Who can destroy both soul and body in hell loves even fallen humankind (Romans 5:8) and so mercifully calls and thereby enables us both to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake! Jesus Himself said that we are of more value than many sparrows, two of which sparrows, He is translated as saying, were sold for a penny. Jesus gave not birds but Himself as a ransom for all, which ransom St. Paul elsewhere calls the testimony given at the proper time (1 Timothy 2:6; confer Matthew 10:28; Mark 10:45). On the cross, the God-man Jesus died for you and for me; He died the death that we deserved; He died in our place, as our substitute. He did not fear death but made the good confession before governors and kings and was not put to shame (Psalm 119:46), for His Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf and raised Him from the dead. When in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3), we confess our sins and our faith in Jesus, then God freely forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, our sins of denying Jesus or whatever our sin might be. God forgives us through His Word and Sacraments.
In tonight’s Gospel Reading, Jesus tells His apostles to speak His Word in the light and proclaim it on the housetops, and elsewhere in St. Matthew’s Gospel account Jesus institutes Holy Baptism (Matthew 28:19), Holy Absolution (Matthew 16:19; 18:18), and the Holy Supper (Matthew 26:26-29). Based on such passages, the Augsburg Confession identifies those three as the genuine sacraments, for they have the commandment of God and the promise of grace (for example, Apology of the Augsburg Confession XIII:4). Notably, when you and I were baptized, we (or our sponsors on our behalf) individually confessed our faith in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, and, when we are communed on Christ’s Body and Blood, we together with the congregation often confess faith in the words of the Nicene Creed. No different is the public declaration of Jesus in the Augsburg Confession, which notably says that private absolution should be retained in the churches (Augsburg Confession XI:1).
Forgiven through Word and Sacrament, we are transformed, with God’s working in us at least to try to keep His Commandments according to our callings in life. We try to confess Jesus before people, both together as a congregation and in our individual lives. In this country, we are free to exercise our religion not only inside the four walls of the church building but also outside of those walls. We at least try not to let our family‑members’ and friends’ and coworkers and classmates’ denials of Jesus go by without comment but to confess Jesus before them whenever the Holy Spirit gives us opportunity. In the verses following today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus makes clear that, especially in families, such confession of Him will not bring peace but will bring division (Matthew 10:34-39; confer Luke 12:51). Yet, just as no sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father’s knowledge and consent (BAGD, 65; Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 10:29, p.208), though God does not necessarily cause the sparrow to fall to the ground, so what happens to us as a result of our confessing Jesus is not outside of God’s realm of control.
The presentation of the Augsburg Confession did not solve the religious differences of the day, as the emperor might have wanted, but rather what we know of as Germany was broken up into two political unions formed on the basis of two different religious faiths (Schwiebert, 735). Still, the Augsburg Confession was the Reformers’ answer both to the emperor’s call for a statement of faith and to the Lord’s call to confess Him before people then, as the Augsburg Confession is part of our confession of Jesus before people today. With daily sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, we live in the forgiveness of sins, and we similarly strive faithfully to confess the Augsburg Confession in teaching and practice and thereby to confess our Lord before people, that, by God’s grace, He might confess us before His Father Who is in heaven.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +