Category: Lent

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Holy Saturday

Paschal Vigil

Holy Baptism of Matthew, Alonna, and Wyatt Reeves

Readings: The Creation – Genesis 1:1-2:3 | The Flood – Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13 | Israel’s Deliverance at the Red Sea – Exodus 14:10-15:1 | A New Heart and a New Spirit – Ezekiel 36:24-28 | Jonah Preaches to Nineveh – Jonah 3 | The Gathering of God’s People – Zephaniah 3:12-20 |

Text: Ephesians 5:8-14

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

St. Paul writes in Ephesians, chapter 5:

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”

Darkness in Scripture is always more than the physical absence of light.  Yes, light belongs to God’s creative work, but it also says early on that God separated the light from the darkness.

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3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. (Gen. 1:3-5a)

Before this, it says that “darkness was over the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2)  God’s creative work was ordering light and separating it from the darkness.  This is a spiritual truth as well, because there is spiritual darkness.   It brings with it chaos, an attempt to undo what God created orderly.  All mankind lies shrouded in this spiritual darkness, and only when one is given the light of God in Christ, do we recognize what the darkness does.  In the darkness, God’s order is under attack: “male and female He created them,” is twisted into our own self-chosen identity.  “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh,” is trivialized into chasing carnal pleasure and treating others as disposable.  “You shall have dominion over all the creatures on earth,” is abused either in waste or worship of the environment.

This darkness is what covers the creation God at first called, “very good.”  He says through Isaiah that there is a: “covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.” But, “He will swallow up death forever” (Isaiah 25:7-8).

The darkness of sin and the shadow of death we know all too well. A fallen world full of fallen men, who, Jesus even declares, “love the darkness rather than the Light” (John 3:19).   Humanity follows the broken compass of our fallen flesh, a needle constantly pointed inward, drawn by the gravity of our sinful, selfish desires. Such is the darkness of fallen mankind, a mind, will, and heart of darkness whose thoughts are continually evil.

But into this creation came the God who is the Author of Light, of good, of order: “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:9-13)

So, notice Paul’s choice of verbs in Ephesians 5. Once you were darkness: past tense. Now you are light in the Lord: present tense. In Christ, who is the Light of the world, our past sin and darkness have been changed into an eternally present reality: You are light in the Lord Jesus.

God’s brilliant light and love for us in Christ do not flicker. His grace and mercy to you cannot be snuffed out. Christ’s peace and light does not come and go like the rising and setting of the sun. No, Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, the Light no darkness can overcome. In His birth for us, His life for us, His death and resurrection for us, we have received God’s true, enduring, endless, and eternal Light.

In Jesus, “now you are light in the Lord.” You also called a city set on a hill. Do not hide who the Lord God makes you to be.  This is His creative work—a new creation bringing light out of darkness.  Similar to how it was in the original creation, He brought His creation out of water.  With His new creation in you, He brings it out of the waters of Holy Baptism.  As you have now been made light in the Lord, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Glory in God your Creator, your Redeemer, and He who makes you holy and light in the Lord.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Good Friday

Readings: Isaiah 52:13—53:12 | 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 | John 18-19

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; John 19:30

“The Death of Jesus Changed How God Relates to the World”

The Old Testament sure is bloody.  People are dropping dead every other minute, it seems.  Reading through the Old Testament, you will find that there are many manifest judgments on the wicked—a worldwide flood, cities destroyed, plagues, ground opening up, people struck dead.  Yet, those things fade out in the New Testament.  Have you noticed that while Israel was commanded to conquer and slaughter the Canaanite nations, no such crusade has ever existed for the Church?

Judgments came upon the wicked overtly and immediately.

There are several examples of judgments coming on the wicked which were overt and immediate.  The whole earth was corrupt and rejected God, besides Noah and his family of eight, and God sent the flood over all the earth.  The wickedness of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great that the outcry precipitated an in-person visit by angels, and at their refusal to repent, God destroyed the city and its surrounding region.  Pharaoh refused to let Israel depart under Moses, so God executed ten deadly plagues against the Egyptians while sparing His people. When the Levite, Korah, and his followers were jealous of Moses’ leadership and the priesthood God established, those rebels were swallowed by the earth.  The list goes on.

These judgments show the seriousness of sin.  It wasn’t a light matter for people whom God created to choose their own way to go, to innovate in what the highest purpose of life is or what constitutes right and wrong.  These judgments reveal the peril of rebellion against God.  Forgetting that we are all nothing but dust enlivened by the Spirit of God, the idea that we can stage a revolt against our Creator and the King of the Universe, if we can only gather enough like-minded people around us, is insane.  Remember and fear Him who destroyed the whole world at His command (2 Pet. 3:4-7).  The Lord’s judgments teach us the danger of putting the Lord to the test.  The fear of authority and serious consequences is something that is dulled in our day of overabundance and love of pleasure.  But to go on living as if God were not Almighty and Righteous, is only to put His patience to the test.  You can see how well that worked out for the Israelites who died in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:1-11).

And yet these varied and serious judgments—even the worldwide Flood—are only a preview of the final judgment.  There is a Last Day on which all the enemies of God—both the Devil, and all evildoers—will be punished eternally: “There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.” (Ps. 36:12)

But something fundamental changed with the arrival of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

Something tremendous happened when the Creator entered His creation: “4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him…14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:4-5, 9-11, 14) It’s not that God changed.  He did not become any less holy and righteous when He took on human flesh.  He did not change His attitude toward sin, and soften up because before He just didn’t see things from our perspective.  His demands for righteousness did not diminish when He sent His Son in the flesh, as He teaches, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:20, 48)

It’s also not that you, or humanity as a whole, has gotten any better.   If anything, wickedness is on the rise.  People have moved into shamelessness toward their sin, and depravity which would have caused previous generations—even pagans—to wretch, is celebrated in our age.  Even murder has been made user-friendly by putting it under the guise of medical care. The idea of virginity is laughed at because it’s so foreign in our lack of self-control.  So, no, we have not gotten any better than our forefathers.

It is God’s Christ who makes all the difference here.  What you just heard in the Passion is God visiting all the sin every person in the world, not upon the people who deserve it, but upon His own beloved Son.  Four times in St. John’s Passion, the fulfillment of the Scriptures are mentioned, as they weave through this ultimate act of judgment and salvation.  All the Scriptures, from the very first day sin entered the world, every ounce of hot wrath, along with every evil intention of the sinful human heart, was fulfilled.  Every sin was answered for.

And that changes everything for you.  Everything which you have deserved from God was hurled upon Jesus.  In His suffering, see what your sin has cost Him.  Do you see Him abandoned and alone, standing in judgment while already being condemned, suffering immensely in bodily anguish, and forsaken by God?  Yes, that is what you have deserved because of your sin.  This is what you have earned from your sinful birth and all that you have done since. A one-way ticket to everlasting condemnation.

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

This changes everything about how God relates to the world until the end.

When He cried, “It is finished,” He meant it.  The Scripture was fulfilled: God’s wrath against the sin of the world is finished.  All is atoned for, for the payment has been made for all.  The only price which was high enough to redeem a race enslaved to sin, death, and the Devil has been rendered by the only-begotten Son of God.  This has changed everything about how God relates to His creation full of sinful men and women.

Notice how now, the immediate judgments are few and far between.  How many cities have been swallowed up, how many have actually been struck by lightning?  More often than not, if there is a judgment upon a person or people, it’s indistinguishable from the “natural” course of events.  The Black Death took the lives of Mongol invaders and pious Christian mothers alike.  HIV and AIDS doesn’t just impact homosexuals, fornicators, and drug users, but it has also made honest families bereft of a parent and spouse.

What God did on the cross through His Son changed how He interacts with this fallen world, as St. Paul writes, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Cor. 5:19)  Until the Last Day, we no longer see what men deserve (what we deserve) because of our sin.  The idea that the world runs on something like the Hindus call karma is obsolete: “one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all.” 

Since the cross and the ascension of Christ to intercede for us as High Priest, we now live in the era of God’s longsuffering, “the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4)  People will not be scared by threats of punishments into believing, but they will be convicted by the preaching of the Word of Christ.  And by that powerful Word—the Word that “kills and makes alive,” “that breaks the rocks in pieces,” that “is the power of God for salvation to all who believe” (Deut. 32:39; Jer. 23:29; Rom. 1:16)—God will release all who believe from their sins.  His people will rejoice that He has nailed their sin to the cross, and joyfully share that life-giving Word.

That dark day on Calvary changed everything for this world.  In the same way, the Judgment at the end of the world has changed.  In this favorable time [2 Cor. 6:2], God refrains from visiting one’s sins upon them.  At the Last, when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, it will be on the basis of Calvary.  All who are found in Christ “do not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)  Only on that Day, will the consequences for those who spurned the Gospel be realized.  Then will the righteous “shine like the sun” while for the wicked, it will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Let all who have Christ as their Savior rejoice, now and into eternal life.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Maundy Thursday

Readings: Exodus 12:1–14 | 1 Corinthians 11:23–32 | John 13:1–15

Text: John 13:1-17, 34-35

This Maundy Thursday, I want to address two things: The connection between the Lord’s Supper and the Passover, and why this night we read about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and commanding them to love one another.

In delivering His people from slavery in Egypt, the Lord could have done it any number of ways.  He had chosen nine plagues to display His judgment on Egypt and the false gods.  But on this tenth, He did something unique.  He didn’t just kill off the firstborn sons of Egypt and preserve the Israelite sons.  He gave them something to do: Take a lamb, slaughter it and paint your doorposts with its blood.  Then roast it whole with fire and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  This is the Lord’s Passover for Israel as they came out of Egypt.

But if we were to ask what the main thing in the Passover was—not that the parts of it are meant to be set against each other—it would be the blood of the lamb.  “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you.”  The blood of the lamb in God’s Passover, marked His people.

And this is the foundation upon which the upper room with the disciples is built.  Even though we don’t read the account from the holy evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, or St. Paul, the Lord’s first Passover sets the stage for what the Lord-in-the-Flesh institutes that night.  God has provided a lamb, as He promised Abraham (Gen. 22:1-14), one lamb for all the people.  A lamb without blemish, conceived and born by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary—free from sin so that He might free His people from their sin.  He shall be killed before the oncoming darkness—“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” (Matt. 27:45)  And it shall be His blood that shall be a mark over the heads of His people to save them from plague and destruction.

As for you, you shall eat the flesh of God’s Lamb who has been roasted as a sin offering.  At some later point, not recorded in Scripture, it became the custom to drink wine commemorating God’s four promises in Exodus 6: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:6-7)  The cup of wine was often a sign of judgment (Ps. 11:6, Isa. 51:17, Ezek. 23:31-33), but it was also one of salvation, as the faithful sing, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps. 116:13)

But the Lord on earth embraced this practice and endowed it with significance when He took the 3rd cup, the “I will redeem you” cup, and said, “Drink of it, all of you, this cup is the New Testament in My blood.”  Lamb’s flesh, roasted and eaten, Lamb’s blood, painted on doorposts, now given to you—“Take, eat; Take, drink.”  This is the meal which our God-in-the-flesh instituted for us to remember His mighty act of deliverance at Calvary.

“Do this in remembrance of me.” These words adorn many an altar-table dedicated to this holy Meal.   The Lord commanded Israel to do the Passover feast in memory of that first Passover and Exodus.  However, this is not the memory of our fleeting and fickle minds.  It’s akin to when it says in the hymnal at the Invocation, “The sign of the cross T may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.” (LSB 151).  I have no cognitive memory of my baptism when I was three weeks old, nor would anyone else who was baptized as an infant.  The biblical way of remembrance is for faith to lay hold of what God as done, and for that mighty act to be applied to the present.

The Israelites were told, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.” (Ex. 13:3)   Well, by the third generation, none of them would be able to recount that day.  Yet, the Lord said, “This day shall be for you a remembrance day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations” (Ex. 12:14). 

Remembrance began with God.  God remembered Noah in the ark; He remembered the sons of Israel in Egypt.  And when He remembered, it meant that He saw His people through the unilateral covenant He made with them—I will bring you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you to be my people.  And when He calls on His people to remember, He is bidding them to see Him through His covenant promise.  This remembrance is even It even applies to “Remember the Day of Sabbath, in order that it may be holy.”[1]  That’s also how, even Israel or individuals had sinned, when they repented, they would beseech God to remember His steadfast love—His faithfulness to His covenant [Ps. 25:6-7].

In the same way, all who are in Christ, beneficiaries of the New Covenant, eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ often, in remembrance of what that covenant is: His Body sacrificed on the cross, His blood poured out for the sins of the world (including all of ours, too!).  This is the meal of our perfect and true Passover Lamb, which take His eternal covenant—“I will be their God, and they shall be my people…I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:33-34)

On that night in which He was betrayed, He taught His disciples many things to bring them from the covenant under Moses to the New covenant in His blood.  One of those lessons came as an expression of His divine remembrance: “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper…3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper.”  He got down on His holy hands and knees and did the menial labor of a servant.  Then, He said about it, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

This is how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ultimately remembered His covenant to bless all the families of the earth: He put Himself in the lowest place, the Lord who serves His rebellious enemies, the righteous saving the unrighteous.

At this point, the objection is raised that Jesus commanded foot-washing, so if we take the Lord’s Supper seriously and give it literal interpretation, why do we not literally wash one another’s feet?  Good question, but foot-washing and the Eucharist are two different topics.  Foot-washing has no Old Testament anti-type, or precedent, and no covenant promise attached to it.  If Christians choose to reenact this, well and good because He said, “I have given you an example.”  But, the bigger message isn’t the literal scrubbing of toes, but what is said in verses 34-35:

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Rather than get hung up on whether we are doing our most exact obedience, the Lord is here commanding something that none of us can do apart from Him.  None of us can love as He has loved, unless we are those who know how the Lord has remembered His gracious promises toward sinners.  None but the Lord’s people, redeemed and marked by the sign of the blood of the Lamb of God, and having a living faith in those things, can remember God and see Him through His covenant.  And remembering our God through His gracious covenant—that God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, who tasted death to save man from it [2 Cor. 5:19; Heb. 2:14]—we also look at the rest of the human family without disdain or distaste.  If God, according to His own promise, came to serve even the lowest (even us!), how fitting it is that we should love even the lowest and meanest.  That’s not just a dirty, mentally unstable homeless person—that is a human being created and redeemed by God.  That’s not just a bristly, proud atheist professor—that is a person whom the Lord had in mind as He gave up His final breath.

This do in remembrance of Me—the eating and drinking for your grace and strength, the loving of all mankind.  In the Name + of Jesus.  Amen.

[1][1] My own translation from the Hebrew, reflecting the construction of what is normally translated “Sabbath day,” as if Sabbath inextricably happened only on the 7th day.  Also, the preposition-verb for “to make holy” is in the passive voice, indicating that the Remembering is to be done for the purpose of letting the Day of Sabbath be holy for them.