When the wood is dry

Posted on May 25, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

As they led Jesus away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:26-31)

The wood is dry. It’s been dry for a long time. There is no moisture of the knowledge of God left inside. Men do not worship the Creator, but the creation. We are the product of evolution, after all, not the special creation of a God who made all things by His powerful Word. Human life in the womb has no value. Reality itself is denied, even the reality of male and female, husband and wife, parents and children. All that matters is pleasure and self and self-determination. The truth of God is abandoned for the feeling of the moment. Christians are scolded and hated by society for trying to hold people back from “progress,” when in reality, Christianity is the only thing holding back the final Judgment that is coming on the world, as the Lord Christ, through His Church, searches for the last few souls who will be converted by His Gospel and saved from a wicked and adulterous generation.

Meanwhile, as the wood has dried up, suffering and violence have increased, as they did leading up to the Great Flood, at which time God’s solution to man’s wickedness was judgment for the many and salvation for the few.

It wouldn’t have to be this way. Salvation is offered to the many. All have sinned, but Christ suffered for all and wants all men to be saved. His command to repent and His invitation to believe are for everyone. Repentance and faith and the new life in Christ would make our world a safe and lovely place. But the many won’t hear of it.

So we Christians bide our time until Christ returns. And He will return. He’s coming soon. We gather around His Word and Sacrament. We pray for the world and for ourselves. We strive to be lights shining in a dark place, reflecting the love of Christ and speaking the truth of Christ. We teach our children to know the Lord and to follow the Lord, both so that they will not become the mass murderers and so that they need not fear the mass murderers and the many dangers of the world, because they are baptized children of the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and their lives are in His keeping, for time and for eternity.

Mourn with those who mourn. Acknowledge the darkness in the world. But don’t spend too much time staring at the darkness. Look to Christ. He is the Light that is coming at the end of this dark tunnel, and His Word shines in the world even now. “In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Peace be with you,
Pastor Rydecki

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Direct access to the Father in Jesus’ name

Posted on May 22, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Rogate – Easter 5

James 1:22-27  +  John 16:23-30

For the third week in a row, our Gospel for the day has taken us back to the night before Jesus died, and with good reason, because it was on that night that Jesus spent a good deal of time preparing His disciples, not only for His suffering, death, and resurrection, but for life on earth after His Ascension, after He would go to the Father. That’s the same era in which you and I live—have always lived. So His words also serve to prepare us for our lives as Christians living in what we might call foreign territory, because the devil is still the prince of this world, and we’re still in danger from him at all times. But we have access to the One who is already victorious over the world, and it’s that access that Jesus teaches us about in today’s Gospel, direct access to God the Father in the name of Jesus.

First Jesus says to His disciples, in that day, you will not ask me anything. “In that day” refers to the time after Jesus’ Ascension. They had been asking Him many questions on that evening, and wanting to ask Him many more, and He had been answering some of them. But soon Jesus would ascend to the Father, and they wouldn’t be asking Him questions anymore. Not like they had been. But it would be okay, because they would soon have unprecedented access to God the Father.

He tells them, Truly, truly I tell you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Now, Jesus’ disciples had been praying to God the Father their whole lives, but never before in the name of Jesus. Let’s talk about what that means.

It means, first, to approach God the Father through faith in Jesus as the Son of God, as the One who gives us access to the Father through His death on the cross. It means to approach God the Father holding up Jesus as the access Key, as the “password,” if you will, that gets us in the door to heaven’s throne room. What gives you, a poor sinner, the right to approach the holy God in prayer? “Jesus.” And He lets you in.

But to ask God the Father for His help in the name of Jesus also means to pray in the same way Jesus prayed. Humbly. Sincerely. Trustingly. With confidence that our Father will hear us, because we’re praying in the name of His beloved Son Jesus, to whom the Father would never deny any good thing. And since the name of Jesus has been placed on us in Holy Baptism, we should be confident that our Father in heaven thinks of each of us in exactly the same way.

And praying in Jesus’ name also means praying for the things Jesus has taught us to pray for. Those things are summarized nicely for us in the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. We are to pray for the hallowing or sanctifying of our Father’s name, for the coming of His kingdom, for His will to be done, for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of sins, for help against temptation, for deliverance from evil. Those seven petitions are general enough to leave everything up to God as to how He will grant them, and that’s intentional, because we don’t know the best way for God’s kingdom to come, so we simply pray, Thy kingdom come, and we know that He will grant us His Holy Spirit who brings the kingdom of God to us and to the world. We don’t know all the things that we truly need each day, and so we simply pray, Give us this day our daily bread, and so on. When we ask our Father for those things, leaving it up to Him to grant them in the time and the way He sees fit, we can be absolutely sure that He will grant them.

Now, you can ask God the Father for other things, too, for things He hasn’t promised to give. It should always be a serious request. Don’t use your access to God to pray for frivolous things, for a certain team to win a game, or things like that. But you might well ask for healing from a specific illness, or for a certain job to come along, or a certain opportunity. You may well ask for relief from tyranny and oppression. That’s good and well, as long as, whenever you pray for something God hasn’t promised to give, you add the same phrase Jesus added, Not my will, but Your will be done.

Now, what confidence do we have that our Father will hear us and help us when we ask Him for things? First, we have Jesus’ command and promise in today’s Gospel. Ask. There’s the command. And you will receive. There’s the promise. And nothing is more certain in heaven or earth than the word of Jesus.

But we have even more than the promise of Jesus! We have the assurance of the Father’s love for us. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not telling you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God. You know there are different words for “love” in the Greek language. God so “loved the world” that He gave His only-begotten Son. That’s the love of commitment and devotion and genuine concern for the well-being and happiness of another. But the word Jesus uses here is the “love” of genuinely “liking someone,” the love of friendship, the love of having common likes and common interests. God the Father has called you believers in Jesus His friends. He likes you. Why? Because you’re so likable? No, but because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from God.

Now, how is it that you came to love Jesus, that you came to view Him as your friend, that you came to believe in Him? Well, that’s the Father’s doing, too. Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Or He said to Peter after he confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven. So it’s the Father’s doing that we believe in Jesus and love Jesus. And yet the Father still credits that to us, in His grace. He still treats us as His friends, as His allies. We’re on the same side, because we’re on the side of Jesus. And so the Father is committed to hearing our prayers and helping us in every need, because we’re no longer strangers and aliens and enemies of God. No, we’ve been reconciled to God through faith in His Son, and He loves us. He thinks highly of us, all because of Jesus.

This is the access we now have, direct access to God the Father in the name of Jesus. As James said in today’s Epistle, though, don’t just be hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word. Don’t just hear that you have access to God. Use it! Use it in prayer, and not just here in church on Sunday mornings. Use your access to the Father’s throne, the access that you have only in Jesus’ name. Things are not safe in this world. We do truly live in enemy territory, the devil’s territory, and there are troubles and temptations on every side. There are so many things we don’t know, so many things we have no control over. But there is a God in heaven who knows exactly what to do and exactly how to help. Only trust in Him, and use the access you have to Him in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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This is why we sing and what we sing

Posted on May 18, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Cantate – Easter 4

Isaiah 12:1-6  +  2 Corinthians 5:14-21

You know the sad story of what happened to the people of Israel in the Old Testament. The Lord chose them to be His own special people of all the peoples on earth. He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. He tended to them as a gardener tends to a garden or as a shepherd tends to a flock. But they were unfaithful. Over the course of the centuries, they turned away from the Lord’s covenant and from the Lord’s Word over and over again and to worshiping idols instead and making up their own right and wrong. And so a scathing punishment was pronounced by the prophet Isaiah—announced ahead of time, over a hundred years before it happened. They would go into exile in Babylon. Their country and their capital city and their temple would be destroyed and abandoned, and it would all be their own fault for rejecting the Lord and for refusing time and time again to repent.

But deliverance was also pronounced ahead of time, a return from captivity, and, more importantly, reconciliation with the Lord God. Isaiah predicts both things, the coming of the Christ, the Son of the virgin, to bear their iniquities, to suffer and die for their sins, and the going out of the Gospel promise that whoever believes in the Suffering Servant would have His sacrifice applied to them for the forgiveness of sins.

What Isaiah foretold, the Apostle Paul recounted in the Second Lesson this evening from 2 Corinthians 5. “One died for all.” The price of our redemption was paid by the Lord Himself. And then He sent out the word of reconciliation, which we might summarize like this: “You have offended me. You deserve to die. But I yearn to be reconciled with you. Meet Me, God says, Meet Me at this place! Meet Me here, at the cross of My Son, that is, where Christ crucified is preached to you in the ministry of reconciliation. This is where I will be merciful to you. This is where I will accept you. This is where I will forgive you all your sins. This is where you and I will have peace. Don’t try to approach Me anywhere else or in any other way, or your condemnation will remain. But approach Me here, through My beloved Son, and all will be well!”

That’s the word of reconciliation that Isaiah preached, and that Christ preached, and that Paul preached, and that Christian ministers still preach.

And it moved Isaiah to sing, to sing for joy those inspired words of chapter 12 that you heard this evening. It’s referred to as the first song of Isaiah, although it obviously isn’t set to music.

O LORD, I will praise You; Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation.

The Lord’s deliverance hadn’t even happened yet in Isaiah’s time—at least, not the deliverance from the coming captivity and destruction or the deliverance of the coming Christ. But just seeing it by faith, he was moved to sing for joy.

We have seen it! Or at least, we’ve learned of it from Holy Scripture and from the events of history. God did deliver Israel from captivity, and He did send His Son into the world, and He has sent out the word of reconciliation across the ages and across the world, so that sinners like you and like me can hear His call, “Be reconciled to God!”, and believe, and rejoice. Because death and condemnation and destruction were coming for us, too. But now we’ve been delivered from it and reconciled to God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Not only did Isaiah sing for joy, but he called on Israel and he calls on us, telling us what to sing and to whom we should sing. In that day you will say: “Praise the LORD, call upon His name; Declare His deeds among the peoples, Make mention that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, For He has done excellent things; This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!”

What do we sing? What message do Christians proclaim? “His deeds.” God’s deeds. And not just His great deeds of creation or of earthly help and protection, but above all, His deeds of salvation from sin, death, and the devil. Christ’s deeds of suffering and dying for us, and His deeds of judgment against His enemies and the enemies of His blood-bought people.

And where do we proclaim them? “Among the peoples.” Among the nations. Wherever you live. Declare the excellent things that God has done, and declare it, not as a chore, not as a heartless lesson for the lecture halls, but with joy. The joy of the Gospel must accompany our song, and if we stop and think about the destruction toward which we were headed, and the lengths to which our God has gone to make sure we avoided it, we won’t be able to help but sing for joy the deeds of the Lord. Amen.

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The Holy Spirit is exactly the Helper we need

Posted on May 15, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Cantate – Easter 4

James 1:16-21  +  John 16:5-15

It’s been 29 days since we celebrated Easter Sunday. In just 11 days we’ll celebrate Jesus’ Ascension to the right hand of God, since He spent 40 days appearing on and off to His disciples and then ascended into heaven. And 10 days after that, we’ll celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the 50th day after Jesus rose from the dead. Today’s Gospel gets us thinking about those two events and why they’re so vitally important.

On the night before He died, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. And the very thought of that made His eleven disciples very sad. Why did Jesus have to go away? They didn’t even know what He meant by “going away.” We do. He was going away, first, to judgment and death. He would see them again when He rose from the dead, but then He would go away in a more permanent way by ascending into heaven. Why did He have to ascend into heaven, so that we can’t see Him here anymore, so that we can’t ask Him questions and hear His responses, so that we can’t see His miracles or see His face? The simple answer is, He went away, because He was no longer needed here. I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away.

The Son of God was needed here on earth, in human flesh, to live a righteous human life, to die an innocent human death. He was needed here to reveal God to us, to reveal the depth of the Father’s love for poor sinners by becoming the sacrifice for sins, the Substitute who paid the penalty for all people’s sins with His own blood, with His own death. He was needed here to earn a righteous verdict and the forgiveness of sins for all sinners. He was needed here to rise from the dead and to show His disciples the proof of His victory over sin, death, and the devil in His risen and glorified body, to show us the life that awaits all who believe when He comes again in glory.

All of that is done. All of that was accomplished nearly 2,000 years ago. What’s needed now, during this entire New Testament period, is for the blood of Christ and all that He earned by it to be applied to sinners for their justification. What’s needed now is for sinners around the world to hear the Gospel call to repent and believe in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, for sinners to be baptized and brought into the household of God’s Holy Church, adopted into His family for the sake of Christ, and made coheirs together with Christ of an eternal heavenly inheritance. That’s what needs to happen for the rest of this earthly age.

All of that—all that’s needed until the end of the age—is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

The Holy Spirit’s proper work is explained in this name that Jesus gives Him: Comforter, also translated as Helper or Encourager, sometimes just transliterated from the Greek word, Paraclete. The proper work of the Holy Spirit is to help sinners by bringing them to faith in Christ Jesus, encouraging them, convincing them to flee in faith to Christ and there to receive the forgiveness of sins. His proper work is to comfort sinners with the knowledge of God’s love in Christ Jesus and with the assurance that all who trust in Him are safe from the guilt of sin, from the accusations of the devil, and from the fate of eternal death.

But before He can get to that work for which He is named, He has other important work to do. Sometimes we call it His “foreign work,” or His “alien work” (from the Latin), because His proper work and His ultimate goal is to help and comfort. But before He can comfort, He first has to convict.

And when he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin, and regarding righteousness, and regarding judgment. Regarding to sin, because they do not believe in me; regarding righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more; regarding judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

How does the Spirit convict or rebuke the world? He does it through the preaching of the Law. The apostles were sent out by Jesus and empowered by His Spirit to expose sin, to tell the world what sin is and to accuse the world of it. The only way to escape the guilt and condemnation of sin is to flee in faith to Christ Jesus; where there is faith in Christ, there is Christ, and where Christ is, all guilt and condemnation are gone. But where sinners remain in unbelief, there they remain guilty of every misdeed, every harsh word, every wicked thought. They are rebuked, convicted regarding sin.

And regarding righteousness, because Jesus, the only Righteous One, has gone to the Father. And yet men, in unbelief, will still claim to be righteous without him. They hate the Word of God. They despise the commandments of God. They reject Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, but they still pretend that they are righteous, that they are good.

Don’t those who defend and promote abortion claim to be the righteous ones, advocating for women’s health and women’s rights? Don’t those who promote the LGBT agenda claim to be the righteous ones, who care about people’s feelings and stand up to the bullies who believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman? For that matter, though, don’t people in general claim to be good, claim to be righteous, claim to deserve to go to heaven, at least, more than certain other people do? But as the prophet Isaiah says, “All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” All our righteousness is worthless before God, because there is no one righteous—truly righteous and deserving of eternal life—except for the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, who has gone to the Father. But the world still refuses to embrace Him by faith, and so the Holy Spirit convicts the world regarding righteousness.

And the Spirit rebukes the world and convicts it regarding judgment, because the unbelieving world refuses to believe that Christ is the Judge and that Christ will come for judgment. They’re more afraid of meteorites and climate change than they are of the imminent judgment of God. But there is the Holy Spirit, wherever Christian preachers preach the Law, announcing the already-pronounced judgment against Satan, the ruler of this world, and the impending judgment that the inhabitants of this world, too, will surely face, unless they are rescued from Satan’s kingdom through faith in Christ Jesus. For this, the Spirit is needed here.

So Christians can take great comfort in the fact that the Holy Spirit is constantly at work rebuking sin, wherever the Word of God is preached. We can also take comfort that the Holy Spirit brings some of those sinners in the world—like you and me—to repent of our sins and to believe in Christ Jesus. He washes away sins in Holy Baptism and there He clothes us with the true righteousness, with the righteousness of Christ. Now we are safe, as long as we remain in Christ.

And it’s the Holy Spirit’s work to see to it that we do. Jesus told His apostles: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth … He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and proclaim it to you.

For the apostles, that meant that the Holy Spirit would guide them to understand the truth of Christ, to preach it in the world, and to record it for us in the inspired books and letters of the New Testament. For us, it means that we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit preserved for us in the Scriptures, together with His continual working through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments, to keep convicting, to keep helping and comforting, to keep teaching and guiding His beloved Christian Church all the way up to the end of the age. This is the exactly the help we need.

I think we sometimes get the idea that, if only Jesus were here in person, making appearances around the world, then people would listen. Then we would have real and lasting comfort. But it’s not true. We don’t need Jesus sitting down in one home at a time, in one church at a time, preaching and teaching in one place at a time around the world, as He did long ago. What we need is His Holy Spirit, filling the world all at once and working through the powerful preaching of Law and Gospel, convicting sinners everywhere regarding sin and righteousness and judgment, comforting Christians everywhere with the peace of Christ and the forgiveness of sins, teaching the truth from Christian pulpits, washing away sins through Holy Baptism, and bringing the body and blood of Christ to Christian altars. This is why we will celebrate the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost in the coming weeks, because the Spirit is needed here, and the ascended Christ has given us exactly what we need. Amen.

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Still more reasons to rejoice

Posted on May 11, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Jubilate

Lamentations 3:18-26  +  Hebrews 4:14-16  +  John 14:1-11

You remember how, on Sunday, we talked about that constant mingling of joy and sorrow in the Christian life. All three of our lessons this evening help us to find that joy in times of sorrow.

Where did the prophet Jeremiah find joy in the midst of his great sorrow, in the midst of his lamentations over the lost city of Jerusalem, over its impenitence and destruction, over the exile of God’s people, over his own mistreatment at the hands of the people of Israel? He remembers the LORD’s mercy and compassion. He remembers that they do not fail, even though everyone around us should fail, even though friends turn out to be enemies, and the religious leaders turn out to be scoundrels, as Jeremiah experienced. As for the mercy and compassion of God, they are “new every morning.” His mercy doesn’t cease. His compassion always returns, because He is faithful. He doesn’t take pleasure in our sorrow, just as the Father didn’t take pleasure in Jesus’ sorrow.

What’s more, if the Lord is your portion, as Jeremiah calls Him, if He is the one you live for, if He is the one you seek to possess above everything else, then, no matter who disappoints you on earth, you can never truly be disappointed. You can always hope in God. He is “good to those who wait for Him.” So, Jeremiah says, “hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” You don’t have to figure everything out. You don’t have to solve the unsolvable problems of this world. Wait quietly for the Lord’s salvation. That’s a dependable source of joy in times of sorrow.

Where else do Christians find joy in times of sorrow? The writer to the Hebrews tells us. We have a great High Priest and Mediator who suffered, who died, who rose again, and who has now ascended to the right hand of God. And remember, He is there as One who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because He was tempted as we are in every way, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. That means we can pray to the Lord Jesus, our High Priest, as One who understands our weaknesses, who understands what it is to be tempted to sin, tempted to despair, tempted to give up. He understands, and, therefore, He is able to help and willing to show us mercy and grant us His favor and help in every time of need.

Where else do Christians find joy in times of sorrow? That we learn from the Lord Jesus Himself as He gathered with His disciples on the most sorrowful night of His life, and of theirs, gathered in the upper room, waiting to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane. What did Jesus give His disciples to hold onto through the sorrow? In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

And what is the way to those heavenly mansions? What is the path? I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, Jesus says. You know Jesus, so you know the Way—the only Way to God. You know that you stand righteous before God by faith alone in Him alone. That’s the Truth. And you have come to Him for life. He’s the only source of it. In fact, He is the Life. There is no eternal life apart from Him. And He’s given Himself to you freely, to have Him as your Lord, to have Him as your Savior, to have Him as the One who will walk through this entire life with you, even through the valley of the shadow of death, until He comes back for you, to bring you to those mansions He’s preparing for you even now.

Is that enough to get rid of all the sorrow of this life? Of course not. But it’s enough to get you through it, and it’s enough to give you something to rejoice over in the meantime. May God the Holy Spirit continue to work that fruit called “joy” in your hearts! Amen.

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