Sermon - Easter 7 - John 17:20-26

“Jesus Prays”

John 17:20-26

Quite often the lectionary sets before us a reading of Holy Scripture that turns out to be hauntingly applicable to current events in the news of the day.  I suppose it should not surprise us, for God’s Word is always relevant.  But it struck me this week as I studied our Gospel reading from John 17 and heard about yet another school shooting in our own state of Texas.

What’s the connection?  Prayer.  Even as Christians we may disagree about what the best solution is for school gun violence (or if there is any practical solution at all), what we can all agree on is prayer.  Prayer for the victims and their families.  Prayer for the parents who will be grieving the loss of dear children.  Prayer that God would work through this senseless violence to bring about good, as he promises to do for those who love him.  We can even pray for our enemies, and that God would turn the hearts of those who seek violence toward peace.  And so forth…

If you follow some of the conversation about this on social media, however, and we’ve seen this play out before – there always seems to be a few hecklers who instead mock us for offering up prayers.  “As if prayer can do anything.  You foolish Christians, keep calling on your made-up grandpa in the sky, while the rest of us get about fixing these problems with real solutions!”  But as this broken record plays over and over, both of violent tragedy and the angst and conflict that follows in public discourse – it can all seem rather discouraging.

But as Jesus says, take heart!  He has overcome the world.  He has overcome the violence and death of this world.  He has overcome the mockery and persecution of this world.  He has even overcome the prince of this world.  And take further heart, in this, dear Christians.  Jesus prays for you.  Jesus prays for us all. 

That’s a big takeaway from today’s Gospel reading.  John 17 is called the “Great High Priestly Prayer” of our Lord. Jesus is, of course, praying for his apostles – for they will face incredible challenges from the world.  A world which hates Christ will also hate his disciples.  Most of them will die for the faith.  All of them will suffer.

But Jesus also prays for those who will come to believe through the Apostle’s teaching of his word.  And that means us.  The future church.  Jesus knew, of course, that this message of good news would grow and take root even to the ends of the earth.  The Gospel preached to all nations.  That many would come to believe in him.  And so he prays for them, for us.

Now, friends, this is no small thing that Jesus prays for you.  Scripture tells us the prayer of a righteous man has great power as it is working.  How much more the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ?  How much more, the prayer of the Son to the Father on our behalf?

So we might ask, for what does Jesus pray?  What does he ask the Father on our behalf?

From John 17 we can see several themes.  I’ll highlight 4 key ideas today.  Jesus prays for our unity.  He prays that we would be with him in glory.  He prays that his love would be in us.  And he prays that the world would know him through us, as we proclaim his name.

First let’s take his prayer for unity.  Unity with one another – and unity with Christ which brings us unity with the Father.  Just as the Father, Son and Spirit are one – three persons united in one God – so he prays that we, his people, would share in that same unity. 

We might observe that unity is hard to come by in our day.  Sin separates and divides people – nation against nation, tribe against tribe, church against church, even, Christian against Christian.  Even the members of a family can be at enmity with one another. But the worst of it is our own alienation from God because of sin.

Jesus, of course, has come to deal with sin.  And one of the benefits of his saving work at the cross, when sin is destroyed – unity is fostered.  We are reconciled to God in Christ Jesus.  And only in him.  And only in him can we be truly reconciled to one another – made one, united.

The unity of Christians that Jesus prays for and gives – is no mere outward unity.  Outwardly, we see much division in the church today.  Though inwardly, we recognize an invisible church is united in faith – all who believe in Christ are one body – the body of Christ.  It’s sort of like the sinner-saint paradox, isn’t it?  We are united, but also divided.  And Jesus prayer for perfect unity among his people is only fully answered when we reach the glory he is preparing for us.

That’s the second idea embedded in Jesus’ prayer, here.  Glory.  Now, Jesus states that the Father has given him glory – and here he speaks of his human nature receiving glory – because his divine nature had all glory from eternity.  He alludes to that, too, and the love he shared with the Father from before the world began. 

But what belongs to Jesus, he wants us to have, too.  And so he prays we would have a share in that glory.  He even gives it to us.  He tells us earlier in John that he is preparing a place for us to be with him in the mansions of heaven.  Here Jesus speaks of our eternal destiny – glory in heaven with him and the Father.  You get a picture of that today in Revelation 22 – the heavenly city with the river of life and the tree of life, no more night or curse.  But there’s even more in store for us:  A glorified body, resurrected, incorruptible, never subject to sin and death again.  Like Jesus’ own resurrected body, death has no more power over him.  So what Jesus has, he prays for us – and he provides for us.  A glorious resurrection.

The third request, or key word in his prayer, is love.  And what a powerful love it is.  The love that the Father has for Jesus, Jesus prays would be also for us.  This love that goes right along with the unity we share in Christ, that it would also abound among us and between us.  Love is the sum and summary of the law – love God and love your neighbor.  But we only love because of his love, shown especially at the cross.  For greater love has no one than that he lay down his life for his friends. 

Which brings us to the fourth theme of Jesus’ prayer, making known Jesus’ name.  This love that we have received, that it would flow from us even to the unbelieving world, so that many more would believe in his name. His name, of course, means more than just the moniker “Jesus”.  His name means everything about who he is and what he does for us, his people.

Making known his name means first of all believing on his name.  Trusting in him for full and free salvation.  Ever coming to the cross, where Jesus shed his holy precious blood for us, and won for us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. 

Making known his name assumes we know his name well.  That we never stop hearing his word.  That we always hear, and ever grow in our appreciation of all he does for us.  This word creates the unity he desires.  This word proclaims the love he has for us.  This word promises the glory that is to come.  The word, the word, the word!  So important.

And it is only then by his word that the world has any hope at all.  Only the Holy Spirit creates faith by gospel – faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.  Only the word of God can quench the thirsty soul.  Only the word can show us how to live, and forgive us when we fail.  Only the word can defeat the old evil foe – in fact when it’s God’s word, even one little word can fell him.

And so the church fulfills Jesus’ prayer as we make his name known.  Here in our own backyard, and even to the ends of the earth.  We make him known to a world that does not know him, when we are called to witness to the hope within us.  We make him known as we support the preaching of his name near and far, and support the work of the gospel.  From the early Jewish pilgrims on Pentecost, to the Man from Macedonia, to Lydia and her family, to the palace of the Roman Emperor to the shores of the Missisippi to the people who go to church on Whitley road.  The apostles’ teaching, the word of God, the name of Jesus have gone forth.  Jesus’ prayer is answered, and continues to be answered.

These words of Jesus are so important.  This “Great High Priestly Prayer” is really worthy of our deep and enduring meditation.  For Jesus is indeed our great High Priest.  He prays to the Father for us. Not only did he, as is recorded here by John, but now, even now, our ascended and glorified Christ continues his powerful prayers for us, his people.  Even now, he intercedes for his church.

And he is the priest who offered up the once and for all sacrifice of his own self.  The Lamb of God, without spot or blemish.  He was given into death that we might not die eternally, and just as he is risen from the dead, so shall we rise. 

Sermon - Easter 5 - Revelation 21:1-7

 

Revelation 21:1-7

“All Things New”

We have been hearing, this Easter season, from the Book of Revelation in the place of our usual Epistle reading.  And I, for one, really appreciate that the lectionary does this.  Not only because Revelation is one of my favorite books of the Bible, but also the passages that are chosen – some of the highlights, really, some of the most precious passages of promise in this last book of the Bible.

We see Christ as he appears to John in chapter 1.  We see him again pictured as the Lamb who once was slain in chapter 5.  We glance over John’s shoulder, as it were, to see the great multitude clothed in white in chapter 7 – a picture of the church in glory.  And in these last couple of weeks we read from chapters 21 and 22 – the last couple of chapters of Scripture – and see a picture of the eternal destiny of all who are in Christ.  And what a glorious destiny it is.  Like the happy ending of all happy endings.

There appears the new heaven and the new earth, for the first heaven and earth have passed away, along with the sea.  What does this mean?

Revelation makes no sense here without an understanding of the world that is rooted in Genesis.  There we read about creation – how God made the heavens and the earth and everything in them – and it was all very good.  But that all changed when the serpent slithered in with his lie, and our first parents cast their lot with him in rebellion against God.  Not only did Adam and Eve change in that bitter fall into sin, but all their children were doomed to the same corruption.  Their fall was our fall.

And furthermore, all of creation would now be touched by the brokenness that corrupted man, its steward.  In Adam, the first heaven and earth were broken.  And they’ve never been the same since.  Thorns and thistles, to be sure, but also disease and death, disasters and calamities of all manner.  St. Paul further characterizes the fallen-ness of creation as a woman in childbirth – with groaning and labor pains – just like the labor pains that Eve and her daughters would now face – but on a creation-wide scale.

What a sad day it was.  When the newly minted creation was shattered by sin.  Like the first time you wear that new white outfit, and dribble the meatball right down the front of it.  Or the new book that cracks when you open it, and then you spill coffee all over and stain its pages.  Like the brand new car you drive off the lot and at the first intersection gets into a crash.  But far worse than any of these. Creation was marred and scarred by sin.  This world that God created good became the valley of the shadow of death.

Now, in a way, we are all victims of this fallen creation.  And sometimes troubles happen to us through no discernable fault of our own.  Sometimes it’s the wicked world – other sinners – that trouble us, like when Pilate mixed the blood of some Jews with their sacrifices.  Sometimes it’s just a freak accident, like when the tower fell and killed those other poor souls.  They weren’t worse sinners than anyone else, so says Jesus.

And yet, there is also a sense in which we do bear responsibility and blame for this fallen world.  As our hymn puts it, “In Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man”.  Adam’s sin is our sin.  We are, in our flesh, fruit of his poisoned tree.  And though we didn’t personally eat from the forbidden tree, we are brought forth in the same iniquity and we ourselves sin just as willingly and whole-heartedly.  We are in our father, Adam’s, image.  And so we can’t really claim victim status.  We deserve death and punishment, temporal and eternal.

It’s a sad state of affairs to be a sinner living in a world corrupted and broken by sin.  Look closely enough and you’ll see the flaws in everything.  No one is good.  Nothing lasts forever.  Moth and rust destroy.  Death comes for all.  But we are not without hope.  For Jesus has come – and he makes all things new.

Jesus, of course, has no sin of his own – he is conceived by the Holy Spirit – his father is not Adam, but God.  He bears no blame whatsoever for this fallen creation, and therefore he is the only one who could truly claim victim status.  Only he suffered without sin, only he unjustly bore the sins of the world.  Only he died without deserving it in any sense.  But he doesn’t play the victim in the sense of whining about it, or expecting some justice for it.  He goes willingly to his destruction.  He obediently fulfills the Father’s will.  He did it all, though, for us.  He did it to make all things new.

It’s been a while since I watched the movie, “The Passion of the Christ”.  And as with all movies based on a book – there’s going to be some artistic license.  One detail that sticks in my mind along that line is that as Jesus is pictured carrying his cross on Good Friday and he stumbles, there is a brief comment he makes to one of the women who followed weeping and wailing.  He looks at her and says, “Behold, I make all things new”.  Now, that’s not something he said then and there, according to the Gospels.  It’s definitely artistic embellishment.  But as a theological statement, it’s actually really good.

At the cross, Christ makes all things new.  By shedding his holy precious blood in his innocent suffering and death, he makes all things good, very good, once again. Like at the very beginning.

By his agony and bloody sweat, he cleanses not only us of our sins – but he purifies all that is touched and tainted by sin – and that includes the creation itself.  So we can rightly see this promise at the end of Revelation – of a new heaven and earth – as rooted in Christ’s work at the cross.

He closes the loop on what was lost in the Garden of Eden.  In the Fall, sin and death came.  Now in Christ they are no more.  In the Fall, man was cast out of the garden, doomed to the wilderness.  Now, in Christ, we are welcomed into a holy city.  In the Fall, sin brought sorrow, pain, and tears.  Not only to Adam and Eve, but it still brings such sorrow to you and me.  But all of that is gone in Christ.  He will wipe every tear from our eyes.

And here’s another connection.  Part of the bitter consequence of sin is the separation of God and man.  In Eden, God walked in the garden and they stood in his presence.  There was nothing to get in the way.  Now in Christ, that’s restored.  The dwelling of God is with man – God makes himself a man, takes on human flesh in the person of Christ.  And because of Christ, we have an eternal dwelling with God in the new creation.  That’s what makes heaven so great anyway – that we get to be with God.  That the dwelling of God is with man.  We his people, and he our God forever.

The next couple of weeks we will hear more from Revelation about that eternal home of ours.  First it will be pictured (as briefly mentioned here) as the bride of Christ, and as the Holy City.  The Heavenly Jerusalem will have perfect dimensions and rich features – gates of pearl and streets of gold.  In other words, our new home will be the best – and a place of perfection.

And then we will see more of what was lost in Eden restored – the tree of life reappears. River water flows – not the 4 rivers of Eden but the River of Life flowing from the very throne of God.  We will have life in abundance.  God will provide for our every need.  There won’t even be night there – for God will be our light and our life.

Friends, when Jesus does something, he does it all the way.  When he says he makes all things new, he means it!  What a blessing that when he returns we will have a new heaven and a new earth, that the former things will pass away, that the dwelling of God will be with man for eternity, and that we will live in newly resurrected and glorified bodies built for eternity. 

Sin ruins everything.  Death touches every corner of this creation.  But Jesus makes all things new.  He undoes the curse.  He restores you and me and creation.  Thanks be to God. 

Now may the peace….

 

Sermon - Easter 3 - John 21:1-14

John 21:1-14

Two meals. One in the upper room. One on the beach. One in Jerusalem, the other in Galilee. One of bread and wine, the other of bread and fish. Both hosted by the Savior. Both providing just what he means to give.

Much had happened between these two meals… Jesus took them to the garden to pray. Then Judas came with the armed men. Jesus was arrested, tried, mocked and beaten. Peter denied him that night in the courtyard, even calling down curses, “I DO NOT KNOW THE MAN!” Then the rooster crowed.

Early on Friday the trial went to Pilate, then to Herod, then to Pilate again. Finally to Golgotha, and to the cross, where Jesus was hung and where he suffered and died. They took him down, laid him in the tomb, and rested on the Sabbath. Sunday morning, angelic greeters told the good news, “He is not here. He has risen!”

Then he appeared. He appeared to Mary and the women. He appeared to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. He appeared to the 10 disciples in the locked upper room. And a week later to Thomas as well. Jesus had not fled the scene. He was alive, and he showed it.

Now they had gone from Jerusalem, gone back to Galilee. The angel said Jesus would meet them there. So now another promise is fulfilled. As Jesus appears and once again eats with his disciples. He hosts the meal. He provides and prepares the food. He bestows the blessings, just as he did in the upper room, so he does now on the beach. It’s like before, only different.

Something else is like before. The disciples had returned to their previous way of life – fishing. And like one day about three years earlier, when they spent the whole night laboring -  the fish weren’t biting. And like that day, a strange man gave strange instructions that they should cast the net just one more time. And like that day, a miraculous catch filled their nets. This was all too familiar.

Only this time, it was a little different, too. The last time, the nets started to rip and tear – but not now. The last time, Peter fell on his face in fear in the presence of the Holy One – “Depart from me,” he said then, “I am a sinful man”. This time, he leapt into the water to approach his risen Lord.

It’s sort of comical how excited Peter is to see his Lord.  You usually take off your outer garment so as not to get it all wet when you’re fishing.  But you wouldn’t want to meet Jesus in your underwear!  So Peter gets himself dressed, then he casts himself into the water – so eater to meet Jesus again. And there’s a note for us, too.  Are we so eager to meet our risen Lord, as he comes to us in Word and Sacrament?  Are we eager for his return on the last day?  And when our last hour comes, may we meet him with the same zeal as dear Peter does here.

Now another difference we see between the two catches is the number of fish.  The first miraculous catch – well there were just many, so many the nets broke.  This time, there is a count.  153 we are told.  Perhaps just one of those numbers that sticks in your head – even years later when John wrote all this down.  But more likely, Jesus did this on purpose, just like the leftover 12 baskets after the feeding of the 5000.  A symbolic number with a point.  You see the ancients widely believed, for whatever reason, there were exactly 153 different kinds of fish in the sea.  While before, the Gospel was preached to the Jews – but now, after the resurrection – the good news of Jesus is to go to the ends of the earth.  James would be martyred in Jerusalem.  John would go to Ephesus and Patmos.  Peter made it to Rome.  And Thomas and Nathanael, it is believed, made it as far east as India, preaching the Gospel there.  Thomas is still widely hailed in India as their founding father among the apostles.  And so, we see perhaps in the 153 fish, but certainly in the lives of the disciples, that this Easter message is for all nations, indeed.  That means it’s also for you.

Every Christian, in some sense, is both caught – and catching fish, or men – in that gospel net.  Through the preaching of the word, and the teaching of all things Jesus has commanded us – and through our daily vocations, and our lives of witness, the Spirit works to make us both fish – and fishers of men.

And one day we will be reunited on God’s golden shore, where we too will meet Jesus.

Jesus is different here too. He’s still the same Jesus. He even has the marks of his wounds to prove it. But he is also different. Now he is taking back his majesty and glory. He will soon be fully exalted to his rightful heavenly throne. Yet in his mercy he appears, makes himself known and recognizable to his beloved, bewildered disciples.

They had gone through a lot between that last supper and this first breakfast after Easter. They had seen the lows of Calvary and the highs of the abandoned grave. They had seen Jesus, heard him, touched him. Now again, they would eat with him, and he would give them blessings.

In a sense, we’ve gone with them. As we have followed these events in the course of our church observances, we too have experienced Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. We too have seen the lows and the highs. And now, for us, things are back to normal again, too. It’s the same as it’s always been. It’s as nothing has changed.

But Easter does change things. It changes things for every Christian.

It may not look like it on the outside. You see the statistics… Christians are just as likely as anyone else to get divorced, to struggle with alcoholism and other social problems. We see our churches divided and squabbling, in the congregations and even on the national level. You look at your own life, and you know full well your sins – that you are no angel.

So much of who we are and what we do is tied up in our sinful human nature – which really is the root of all our problems and struggles. Imperfect people in an imperfect world. So what’s different about Christians? What difference does Easter make? A lot.

It may not always look that way on the outside, but we Christians are people of Resurrection. That is, we have been raised to life in Jesus Christ. Just as he died and rose, so our sinful selves were buried with him in baptism, and the new creation, the child of God is raised from those same waters. We are, like Jesus, back from the dead. And though we don’t always see ourselves this way, what’s important is that God does.

And this isn’t to say that Easter makes no visible difference in our lives. It should. It does. Never perfectly, but we do show Christian love and serve our neighbor for Jesus’ sake. The Spirit does move us to good works which exercise our faith. And God accepts this imperfect works of love which are also purified through Jesus Christ.

There’s one more difference that Easter makes. There’s one more resurrection to come. We who have been reborn in the waters will still die. Yet even though we die, yet shall we live. And we who live and believe in him will never die. Oh, our bodies will fail and be buried. But our spirits will rest with the Lord. And then the final resurrection will come, when Christ returns, with sound of trumpet and the dead rise again. When Christ, the firstborn of the dead, welcomes us – resurrected body and soul together – into our eternal home with him.

Easter gives us this hope. And it’s a hope that makes us different. It’s a hope that shapes our lives and gives us direction and purpose. It’s a hope that brings great comfort and peace. It’s a promise that makes all the difference in the world.

And that promise is renewed here today, for us. Where just like usual, we receive the blessings of Christ in a meal. Just like his earliest disciples did, we too gather for a meal, hosted by the risen Christ. We’re not in an upper room, or on a beach, but at a rail around an altar. But we still join in blessed communion with God and with others who share our faith. We still receive all the blessings and promises of God in Jesus Christ. Our sins are forgiven. And that means we live – now, and forever.