Teach all the nations

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Holy Trinity

Ezekiel 18:30-32  +  2 Corinthians 13:14  +  Matthew 28:18-20

Long before Jesus gave the great commission to His apostles to go and make disciples of all nations, the LORD God gave the prophet Ezekiel a great commission, to preach a message from God to the rebellious and idolatrous house of Israel right in the middle of the devastation caused by the Babylonians and in the midst of the Babylonian captivity. You heard a part of his preaching in the First Lesson: I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways. And that judgment would be very strict, because the house of Israel had the very words of God handed down to them, had access to them for a thousand years. They were told what idolatry was, to fear someone or something more than God, to love someone or something more than God, to trust in someone or something more than God; and yet they turned to other gods for help in time of need. They were told how the name of their God was to be honored and not misused, and yet they took His name in vain by claiming that the Lord promised peace to the impenitent, when in reality He promised judgment. They were told about the Sabbath rest God intended to give them in the ministry of the Word that pointed ahead to the coming Messiah, and yet they broke the Sabbath and rejected that lesson that the Lord wanted to teach them. They were told to honor their father and mother, and yet they rebelled. They were told not to murder, and yet they committed murder, if not with their hands, then at least with their hearts. They were told not to commit adultery, but they engaged in sex outside of marriage and got divorces for unscriptural reasons. They were told not steal, and yet they stole. They were told not to give false testimony, and yet they engaged in deception and deceit. They were told not to covet their neighbor’s house or anything that belonged to their neighbor, and yet they allowed their sinful desires to consume them. And so God sent Ezekiel to tell them, Judgment is coming!

But judgment isn’t restricted to the house of Israel. It’s coming for the nations—for the Gentiles, too. Now at the time of Ezekiel, and at the time of Christ, the nations hadn’t been told right and wrong by God. The nations didn’t have His Word like the people of Israel did. And yet, as Paul writes to the Romans, the nations—the Gentiles—all had the Law of God written in their hearts. Yes, it’s obscured by sin, but mankind has always had a general sense of right and wrong, put there by God Himself, a basic understanding of virtue and of vice, and a strong sense that there is a God and that they are to seek Him, but not seek Him inside ourselves or in nature. No, we know by nature that the true God is above and outside of His creation. And yet, the nations didn’t worship Him in that way, and more often than not, they engaged in vice instead of virtue.

So judgment was coming for Israel, and judgment was coming for the Gentiles, for the nations, although Israel would receive a greater judgment, because they had been told explicitly from Holy Scripture about the true God and about His will, while the Gentiles hadn’t. The more opportunities a person is given to know the truth about sin and about the true God and about His requirements, the worse it will be for that person who continues in his or her sin.

Still, the nations must know, because knowing and repenting and believing is still the only way for anyone to escape the judgment that is coming, for “all have sinned,” both Jews and Gentiles.

And so the Lord Jesus, before He ascended into heaven, sent out the Eleven. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations.

“Make disciples of” all the nations. The verb “make disciples of” is related to the noun for “disciple,” and a disciple is literally a “learner.” Other languages simply translate this verb as “teach.” “Teach all the nations.”

That teaching includes the call to repentance, just as Peter included it in his teaching on the Day of Pentecost as he taught the people of Jerusalem how they had sinned by being complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus. Ezekiel included that teaching, too. Turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. You can’t remain as you are! You can’t keep living as you are! Turn away from the things that God calls sins or transgressions, and get a new heart and a new spirit! In other words, repent!

But what good would it do to turn away from sin if the sins remained unatoned for? If you punch someone in the face and then stop punching them in the face, you still have deal with the fact that you punched someone in the face. So, too, with the Law of God. Even if you were to stop sinning against God, which no one is entirely able to do, you still have to deal with the sins you have committed.

That’s why Jesus came, why He had to come. The only way to atone for the sins of man was for the Son of God to become the Son of Man and to atone for all the wrongs that mankind has done with His perfect life and with His innocent death on the cross. No other atonement for sins can be made. Jesus paid for them all, paid the price God requires for sinners to be justified.

And so the prophets and apostles taught the Jews and the nations to repent, and then taught them to know that God would give (in the case of the prophets) or that God had given (in the case of the apostles) His own Son as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.

And then the apostles were to teach people to believe in Christ and to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He who believes and is baptized will be saved! But whoever does not believe will be condemned. Teaching the nations included teaching them that, in Holy Baptism, the one God, who is three Persons, washes away their sins, places His name on them, clothes them with Christ, connects them to the death and resurrection of Christ, and makes them members of His beloved Bride, the Holy Christian Church.

And so we teach sin. We teach repentance. We teach Christ crucified and risen from the dead. We teach faith and Baptism. And then we baptize those who wish to be baptized, with the full authority that Christ has and has given to His ministers in the world to teach and to baptize anyone and everyone in all the nations.

But the teaching doesn’t stop with baptizing people. Jesus didn’t end the great commission there. He went on, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. No one who truly comes in faith to the Lord Jesus and receives His Baptism can then willingly walk away from His teaching, or intentionally go on living in sin. No, ministers are to teach the baptized, teach them God’s Word and God’s will, teach them to pray, teach them to keep turning away from sin and turning toward righteousness and holiness as God the Holy Spirit remakes the baptized children of God into the holy and pure image of Christ, teach them to observe the Lord’s Supper, where the Lord Jesus gives us His true body and blood to strengthen us all the way through this life.

Teaching the nations is still the work Christ has given His Church to carry out on earth, because judgment is still coming, and it’s coming even more powerfully now, because both Jews and Gentiles—all nations—have heard the Word of God, have been told right and wrong, have been commanded to repent and to believe in Christ for salvation, and most haven’t repented, haven’t turned away from their sins. Practically the whole world bears the guilt that Israel once bore, because practically the whole world has heard the teaching of Christ’s apostles and has turned it down. Still, as the Lord cried out through the prophet Ezekiel, so He still cries out, “Why should you die, O house of Israel? Why should you die, O you nations of the earth? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”

Turn and live! That’s what we teach all the nations. Turn and live! Repent and believe! Believe and be baptized! Be baptized and observe all the things that Christ has commanded. And we’re not alone as we teach, and we’re not alone as Christians in the world, because we also have that blessed promise of Jesus: Behold, I am with you always—literally, “all the days”—even to the end of the age. So turn and live! Repent and believe! Believe and be baptized! Be baptized and observe the teaching of Christ, who is still with His beloved Church, with all His grace and love and strength and help. Amen.

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The Trinity of Persons and Their saving work

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

The first Sunday after Pentecost is always celebrated as Trinity Sunday. It makes sense. Since the Church Year began, we’ve walked through the life of Jesus, from His birth (which was God the Father’s greatest gift to the world), to His ministry, to His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, and last week we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the gift of both the Father and the Son. So now it makes good sense for us to pause and reflect briefly on the work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not in some abstract way, but in a very concrete and practical way, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work toward the purpose of saving fallen man.

Before we get into the Gospel, which will focus heavily on the “Trinity,” that is, the “Threeness” of God, we’ll say a word about the “Unity,” that is, the “Oneness” of our God. We speak of a Trinity of Persons and a Unity of Essence or Being. God isn’t three Beings working together as one. He isn’t one Being split into multiple parts. He’s one undivided essence. One God, not three Gods, with one mind, one will, one purpose. But there is also a threeness to this one God, a threeness of Persons, clearly revealed in Scripture, especially in the New Testament. Both aspects of our God are who He is, and so it’s vitally important that we know and confess both His oneness of essence and His threeness of Persons. As I say to the catechism students, whenever you focus on the oneness of God, be to sure keep His threeness in view in the background. And whenever you focus on the threeness of God, be sure to keep His oneness also in view.

Now, on to our Gospel from John chapter 3. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night with his question. Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. Nicodemus isn’t yet a believer, but he can hear the ring of truth in Jesus’ teaching. And so he concludes that Jesus has come from God. He doesn’t realize just how right he is. He thinks Jesus has come from God like the prophets who were sent by God. The truth is much deeper. The rest of us human beings only begin to exist when we’re conceived in our mothers’ wombs. But the Person of the Son of God existed already in the beginning with God the Father. He is the “only begotten” of the Father, born of the Father in eternity as light is born of the sun, and then sent by the Father into the world as a man. As Jesus says later, No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. Or possibly, “who was in heaven,” that is, before the Word became flesh. Either way, Jesus “came from God” into the world.

But Jesus doesn’t thank Nicodemus for his words of praise. He doesn’t allow Himself to get sidetracked into small talk or obscure theological questions. Instead, He goes directly into a sermon that gets to the heart of the matter, for Nicodemus and for everyone. How can a person be saved? How can a person escape eternal condemnation? How can a person enter the kingdom of God?

Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Seeing or entering the kingdom of God is the goal. The goal of every human being. It has to be. Because life is short, sometimes far too short. If this is all there is, this fleshly life, this earthly existence, then we’re no better off than the animals. And if this is all a person lives for, to survive for a few decades here on earth and to lead the happiest life possible here, then sure enough, that person will not see the kingdom of God. What he or she will see at the end is that this wasn’t all there was, that there is either the kingdom of God or the domain of the devil, and you will spend eternity in one or the other.

The only way to see the kingdom of God is to be born again. Born a second time. Even born “from above.” Your first birth wasn’t good enough. Why? Because “flesh gives birth to flesh.” And that flesh that we’ve inherited from our parents and they from theirs isn’t clean, isn’t pretty, isn’t innocent. It’s wicked, twisted, corrupt. By nature, we hate God—the true God, that is; man has always sought to worship and to curry the favor of a god or gods, but not the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have to be remade, become entirely new, and that new life has to come from above. It can’t come from you, as little as a tiny baby gives life to him or herself.

Where does this remaking and new life come from? Jesus tells us: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Those who have been born of the flesh have to be born also of the Spirit. “Water and the Spirit,” a reference to one of the primary tools the Holy Spirit uses to give that new life and new birth, Holy Baptism, which is, as St. Paul calls it, a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, and “the washing of water by the Word.” The Spirit is the one who works faith in our hearts through the Word, as it’s preached by itself and as it’s connected to water in Holy Baptism. The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. But just because the Spirit also gives new life through the Word alone doesn’t mean Baptism is less important or is optional. The very Word through which the Spirit works faith calls us to Baptism, points us to Baptism, and attaches promises to Baptism, the promise of the forgiveness of sins, the promise of being clothed with Christ, the promise of resurrection to a new spiritual life now, and the promise of a future resurrection to eternal life.

But what is it exactly that the Spirit draws us to, turns the eyes of our hearts to, brings us to trust in? To what does Baptism connect us? Jesus explains that to Nicodemus: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is why God the Father sent God the Son into the world. This is what God the Holy Spirit was teaching Israel all along in the Old Testament Scriptures and what He now preaches to our hearts through the Word of the Gospel: Just as Moses long ago made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a pole, at God’s command, so that the Israelites who had been bitten by venomous snakes might look up at it and be mercifully healed by God from the venom that was killing them, so Jesus, the Son of Man, had to be lifted up on a cross, so that all those who were destined for eternal death might look to Him in faith and be saved—look to Him, no longer hanging on a cross, but preached in the world as the One who gave His life on the cross, preached in the world as the One whose death we are connected to in the eyes of God through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is placed on the baptized, and the one who once was lost in Satan’s domain is rescued and given entrance into the kingdom of God.

And that’s the goal of our one God, of the Holy Trinity. That’s what the history of the world has been about. It’s why the world hasn’t been destroyed yet, in spite of people’s multiple attempts to bring the wrath of God down upon themselves with their godless behavior and their endless idolatry, with their refusal to believe the Word and to amend their sinful lives. God the Father knows that He has children who have yet to be born, and to be born again of water and Spirit, sinners who will become His children by the work of God the Spirit who will bring them to the knowledge of God the Son that they may not perish but have everlasting life.

So don’t get bogged down in philosophical questions about the nature of the Holy Trinity. We will understand Him better when we see Him face to face in His kingdom. For now, the goal has to be entering His kingdom, remaining in His kingdom until Christ comes again, living as holy children of God within His kingdom even now, and urging the lost to enter His kingdom, too, to know and believe in the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.

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In this way God loved the world

Posted on June 8, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Pentecost

Isaiah 32:14-20  +  Acts 10:42-48  +  John 3:16-21

The readings you heard this evening are the historic readings for the day after Pentecost. It’s sort of the continuation of the theme of celebrating the Holy Spirit’s coming. As Isaiah prophesied in the first lesson, Israel would be a wasteland because of their unrighteousness, Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then Israel would prosper. In what sense? In the sense that, on the Day of Pentecost and in the decades following, Israel became a fruitful field of believers in Christ who were devoted to the true God, a fruitful field of genuine faith and sincere love.

Not everyone in Israel, of course. Many—most!—remained enemies of God, remained a desolate wasteland with regard to faith and love. But a good number of them—3,000 of them on the Day of Pentecost—received the Word of God and, with it, the gift of the Spirit from on high.

And not only Israel in the sense of the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also including believing Gentiles, as we heard in the Second Lesson from the book of Acts. When Peter went to the house of Cornelius the Gentiles, he preached a clear message of Law and Gospel: Jesus commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins. Yes, Christ will judge all people, even those who have already died, since He will raise all the dead on the Last Day. Who will escape condemnation? Who will not have to answer for all their sins? Whoever believes in Him. Really? “Whoever”? Jew or Gentile? Israelite by birth or non-Israelite? Yes! What sign do we have that Peter’s “whoever” really meant “whoever”? We have this sign: The Holy Spirit was poured out in a visible way on the Gentiles who believed, as they began to speak in other languages, just as the believing Jews in Jerusalem had on the Day of Pentecost when they received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And that brings us to the third lesson this evening, the familiar words from John chapter 3. For God so loved the world… Whom did God love? “The world.” All people. All men. The love of God extends to everyone in the world.

But not as many people today understand “love.” It isn’t the love of attraction. It isn’t the love of really liking a person, loving who they are or what they do. It isn’t the love of always being nice to people. It isn’t the love that overlooks people’s character flaws and evil deeds and sins, and it certainly isn’t the love that celebrates people’s wickedness and people’s sins. Rather, it’s the love that deeply desires to rescue people from their wickedness and from the painful and eternal consequences of it. It’s the love of a Creator who pities His miserable creation, even though our misery is entirely our own fault. Still He loved the world.

How did He love the world, then? What did He do for the world in His love?

He “so” loved.” Not “so much,” but “in this way.” In this way God loved the world: He gave His only-begotten Son. Gave Him into our humanity, to be our Brother. Gave His life as a living sacrifice for us, and then gave His Son into death for us, for the world.

So that, what? Everyone goes to heaven? No. Everyone is spared from earthly tragedy and pain and suffering? No. So that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. God desires the world’s salvation. His purpose in sending His Son was the world’s salvation. All mankind. All people. That all people should believe in His Son and escape perishing, escape being condemned to everlasting death, be saved from eternal exile and suffering in hell. That was God’s purpose. That’s how He loved the world.

And He did more than give His Son. He also gave His Spirit to work through the preaching of this Gospel to persuade men and to empower men to believe it, to believe in Him. He gave His Spirit in the Means of Grace so that believers can be strengthened and preserved in faith. And He gave His Spirit in the Church so that believers might live as children of the day and children of the light and no longer walk in the darkness of sin and depravity and disobedience. What’s more, He continues to give His Spirit so that, as the Church continues to confess the Gospel in the world, still more of the world’s population might hear and believe and be saved.

Not all men will believe, and so not all men will be saved. Not all will be justified. Not all will escape condemnation. Most won’t, in fact. Why? Why won’t they come into the Light of Christ and His forgiveness and salvation? Why won’t they tolerate the Light that’s being shined through His Gospel? Because men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.

What a strong warning this is, not to be found among those who prefer to wallow in sin than to be cleansed with the blood of Jesus and to live a clean life, a life of love, true love, like the love of God who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. May Jesus’ words about the Father’s love keep you firmly grounded in the faith. May they inspire you to walk in the light, to stay in the light, to live as children of God. And may they also motivate you to tell anyone who will listen about the God who loved the world in this way. And when you do, there will be the Spirit of God doing His all-important work of persuading sinners to believe, and turning the desolate wasteland of this world into the fruitful field of His Holy Christian Church. Amen.

 

 

 

 

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God has made a home with us

Posted on June 5, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

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Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world on the Day of Pentecost, as we heard in the Epistle reading. Not that He wasn’t already in the world before that; He’s been here all along. But He was given to the world in a special way on the Day of Pentecost. We’ll talk about that a little bit. Remember, it’s the Holy Spirit who is responsible for inspiring the writings of the prophets and of the apostles, so really, it’s the Holy Spirit teaching us today about the Holy Spirit in that account. But the Spirit of God also has much to teach us in today’s Gospel. So we’ll spend a good amount of our time there, too, where we’ll see that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to come and make a home with believers. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, God Himself has made a home with us.

Let’s consider the Gospel. Jesus begins with these words: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. There’s so much packed into that little sentence! First, what is Jesus’ word? It’s everything he ever said to the apostles, His entire teaching. His entire teaching about man and the lost condition in which we’re all born. It’s His entire teaching about God—who He is, what His commandments are, what He declares to be right and wrong, how He hates and punishes sin, and how He sent His Son into the world to redeem fallen man and to reconcile us to Him through faith alone in Jesus the Christ.

Not that Jesus came up with any of that Himself, as if it originated with Him. The word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s, who sent me. There we see a tiny glimpse into the workings of the Holy Trinity. God the Father is the Fount and Source of the words, of the teaching. What He speaks is…Jesus, who is the eternal Word who was in the beginning with God and who was (and is) God. When Jesus came into the world and spoke to the world, He spoke the words that came from the Father as the Source.

Of course, even before Jesus was born, the words that originated with the Father also came into the world. They came by the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets, bringing the word of God into the world bit by bit, book by book, prophecy by prophecy, meaning that the entire Old Testament is also the word of Jesus and the word of the Father and, in yet another sense, the word of the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean to “keep His word”? It means to treasure it, to hold onto it, to believe it, and to put it into practice. In summary, it means faith in God as He reveals Himself in His Word, and love toward God and our neighbor as God has revealed in His Word what love is and what it looks like.

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. Why would anyone love Jesus? This is the love of agape, of sincere devotion. Those who love Jesus love Him because He has told us the truth about God and about the way God has provided for sinners like you and me to be reconciled to Him: through faith in Christ Jesus, who demonstrated His own love for us in that He gave His life for us, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. If anyone loves Jesus, he will keep Jesus’ word. If anyone loves Jesus, He will read the Word of God. Hear the Word of God. Learn and meditate on the Word of God. He will know and believe in the true God. He will be devoted to God, to avoid what is sinful and wrong and to think and to do what is right in God’s sight. And, if he stumbles and falls, he will repent. That’s also part of “keeping Jesus’ word.”

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. Sadly, that describes most people in the world today. They don’t love Jesus, and so they don’t keep His words. Or they love some made-up idea of Jesus instead of the one actually revealed in Holy Scripture, and then think they can keep a few of His words and ignore the rest. But it doesn’t work that way. You can’t know what Jesus says and intentionally do the opposite, refusing to repent, and still pretend to love Jesus.

But He has this beautiful promise for everyone who does love Him and keeps His word. And my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make a home with him. Imagine, God Himself making a home on earth, not just in some city somewhere, but with an individual. How is that possible? How is it done?

Well, in the Old Testament, God, who fills all things, whom even the highest heavens can’t contain, made His home, His dwelling place on earth, a temple in the city of Jerusalem. There God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—lived among men, made Himself accessible to men, in a symbolic way. But the temple was only a picture. Then Jesus came, the true Temple of God, and God made His dwelling place on earth in a man who literally made His home with Mary and Joseph, and then with His apostles, moving from place to place with them. Where Jesus was, there was the Father, and there, too, was the Spirit.

What about after Jesus’ ascended into heaven? That’s where Pentecost comes in. You know the story. Ten days after His ascension, the Lord Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit on His believers in Jerusalem. But the Holy Spirit is a spirit, invisible like the wind. At Jesus’ Baptism, He made Himself visible in the form of a dove. On the Day of Pentecost, He made His presence known in three external signs: (1) The sound of the loud, rushing wind—a sign that the powerful Spirit of God was among them. (2) The tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples—a sign that the Spirit now dwells with believers; a sign that the Spirit is passed along with the tongue, through the preaching of the Word of God; and a sign that He would use their tongues, their preaching, to kindle a fire on the earth, to spread the kingdom of Christ in the hearts of men. And (3) the sudden ability of the believers to speak the wonders of God in different languages—a sign that the Gospel was to be preached to all the peoples of the earth.

And after Peter preached to the people and exposed their sin, after they were cut to the heart by his Spirit-filled preaching, what was it he promised them? Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. You see, the gift of the Holy Spirit wasn’t just for the Day of Pentecost. He would be dwelling on earth in and among believers, that is, within this worldwide Holy Christian Church, until Jesus Himself returns to bring us to His home. Until then, God has made a home with us by His Spirit.

That home is the Christian Church in general, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians in chapter 3: Do you not know that you—that is, you plural, you as a group of Christians—are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The Spirit works through Word and Sacraments to gather a Church on earth and to strengthen and govern it. But that home of the Spirit is also each individual believer, as he writes later in chapter 6: Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? God dwells in each believer by His Spirit, testifying with our spirit that we are children of God, teaching us about Jesus, urging us to keep trusting in Him, to bear the cross with patience, and spurring us on toward love and good works. It’s as Jesus promised, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you.

This is why Jesus could say what He did to His apostles: Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. How can we have peace in this world as long as the devil is the “ruler of this world,” as Jesus calls him? How can we have peace when sin is rampant, and when suffering and death surround us? How can we have peace when the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh seek to destroy us day and night? Because, in the midst of all that, God Has made a home with us. He is present in His Church with the peace of the forgiveness of sins, proclaimed in the Word and applied by the water of Baptism and by the body and blood of Jesus given to us in the Sacrament of the Altar. And He is present by His Spirit in the heart of every believer to remind you continually that God is real, His Word is true, Jesus reigns at the Father’s right hand, and you belong to Him.

So let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. The world laughs at the peace Jesus gives, but you and I—we live by it. We thrive on it. And as you face the challenges and struggles of each day, take comfort in Jesus’ promise. Even in the darkest times, even on the loneliest of days, when friends are few and when allies become enemies, you are not alone. It’s as the Psalm says, Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me fast. If that was true in the Old Testament, it is much more so now, after the Day of Pentecost, when God’s Spirit dwells in and among believers, when God Himself has made a home with us. Amen.

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Meditations for midweek of the Sunday after Ascension

Posted on June 1, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Ezekiel 36:25-27  +  Romans 8:29-39  +  John 17:20-26

Ezekiel 36:25-27  Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Israel was wasting away in exile when Ezekiel wrote those words. Punished for their stubborn rebellion against the God who had made a covenant with them and who had patiently borne with them for a thousand years. But they were stripped of their homes, stripped of their belongings, stripped of the comforts they had known, because they kept hardening their hearts to the preaching of God’s prophets, kept refusing to repent, kept refusing to live righteously, according to God’s commandments, because they weren’t righteous people. They had abandoned the faith. It takes righteous people to lead lives that are truly righteous. But you only become a righteous person when God, by His Spirit, turns an unbelieving heart into a believing one, and He doesn’t do that while people are stubbornly resisting Him.

But God speaks a beautiful promise to these Jews in exile. A day of sprinkling. A day of cleansing. A day of return. It would much more than the return from exile in Babylon. It would be a return to faith, a conversion of many Israelites who had been lost, a new beginning from the Holy Spirit, who would melt away their stubbornness, their stony hearts, and give them hearts of flesh.

That happened on the Day of Pentecost, when Jews from many nations were gathered and heard Peter’s preaching and his call to repent and to be baptized. And there was the sprinkling with clean water. There was the forgiveness of sins. And there began the New Israel, gifted with the Holy Spirit to lead new lives of obedience.

You’ve been included in that New Israel, too, sprinkled with clean water and brought into Christ. But that’s not just an external sprinkling. It has to be a sprinkling of the heart. Be on the lookout for the idolatry that derailed Old Testament Israel. Be on guard against a dead or dying faith. And learn to walk each day, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:29-39  For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Where do you seek certainty of your salvation? How do you know that you will escape condemnation? How do you know that God’s promises to Israel apply to you? Your call to believe the Gospel is evidence of God’s eternal plan to save you, the fact that the Gospel was sent to you and that you embraced it as the truth—that’s proof of predestination, as long as you continue in faith and keep living in daily contrition and repentance. If the eternal Father gave His Son for you, what won’t He give of all that you need? What do you have to fear? From anyone or anything? If Christ is at the right hand of God interceding for you, even as the Spirit Himself intercedes with groans that words can’t express, what can you lack? No sin can condemn you. No guilt can weigh you down. No enemy can touch you as long as you remain in Christ.

John 17:20-26  “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

What was it Paul said in the Epistle? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Of He makes intercession for us there. Because He already made intercession for us here, before He suffered, before He died. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. That’s you. That’s me. And how is it we came to believe? “Through their word,” Jesus says. As always, faith comes by hearing the word that is preached about Christ.

And what does He pray for in this particular great High Priestly prayer? That all believers may be one, with a oneness that resembles the oneness between God the Father and God the Son, in perfect love and devotion, perfect appreciation, perfect unity of purpose and of goals. This is what Jesus wants for His Christians, for us to be one—not one with different doctrines and beliefs, but one in the true prophetic and apostolic doctrine, one in the truth, one in the true faith, and one in love.

But all of that is only possible because of the Spirit of truth. And so we continue to pray, Lord, Jesus, send us Your Holy Spirit! And we look forward to Sunday when we will celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit into the world.

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