Prepared to testify. Prepared to die.

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Exaudi – Sunday after the Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

This past Thursday we celebrated again Jesus’ Ascension and His sitting down at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Our Lord, our Savior, our King, our Brother now rules over all things for the benefit of His Holy Christian Church. And one of the first and most important acts of King Jesus sitting on His throne was the sending of the Holy Spirit, which we’ll celebrate next Sunday on the day of Pentecost. But once again we turn back this morning to Maundy Thursday evening and the final instructions Jesus gave to His apostles, much of which centered around the coming of the Holy Spirit, “whom I will send to you from the Father.”

He calls the Holy Spirit by two names in this Gospel: The “Comforter” and the “Spirit of truth.” We’ve talked about the name “Comforter” before. Literally, He’s the “Encourager.” The One who comforts. The one who helps. The one who encourages Christians and urges them on toward faith and toward love. He’s called the Spirit of truth, because everything He reveals and teaches and testifies is true and trustworthy and dependable.

He will testify about Me, Jesus says. He’s referring, first of all, to the testimony the Spirit would give on the Day of Pentecost in the hearts and minds of the faithful. He would testify in their hearts about Jesus, confirming them in their faith in Christ Jesus, teaching them about Christ Jesus, helping them to know Him rightly and to follow Him steadfastly.

He’s also referring to the testimony the Spirit would give in the many miraculous signs He would perform among the believers, including that sign they would exhibit on the Day of Pentecost of speaking in foreign languages. That would be the Spirit’s testimony to the world that the apostles’ preaching was truly from God and not from man. It would be the Spirit’s testimony about Jesus that He was the Christ, as the apostles said, and that all should repent and believe in Him. It would also be the Spirit’s testimony that the Gentiles were included in God’s plan of salvation, as the infant Church wrestled with the issue of how the Gentiles fit it. Those who had doubts about the Gentiles had it confirmed to them by the Holy Spirit that the Gentiles were to be given equal status with the Jews in the Christian Church when the Spirit enabled the Gentile Cornelius and his household to speak in tongues after hearing Peter’s preaching.

And you also will testify, Jesus tells His apostles, because you have been with me from the beginning. Notice, Jesus isn’t talking to all Christians here. He’s talking to those apostles who were with Him from the beginning. It’s eyewitness testimony He’s expecting them to give, eyewitness testimony about Him, about all that Jesus said and did from His Baptism to His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. “This is who Jesus is. This is what He did. This is what He taught. And this is what it means.” That was to be their testimony.

That doesn’t mean they were to forget about the Old Testament. Far from it! They were to expound the Old Testament as Jesus Himself expounded it, as the true Word and teaching of God, as the true history of the world, and as the true history of the people of Israel, all of which was pointing to Him as the Savior of the world and as the great King who would reign forever.

In fact, the apostles were to start with the Jews, with the people of Israel, as they bore witness to Jesus and proclaimed to the Old Testament people of God that their Messiah had come. That Jesus was the Heir of the Old Testament and that He had fulfilled it. That Christ had instituted a New Testament in His blood, and that it was time to repent and believe in Him. The apostles had to be prepared to testify to all these things.

But how would it go for the apostles among the Jews?

They will put you out of the synagogues.

Imagine, having grown up your whole life faithfully attending the synagogue, hearing the Word of God pointing to the coming Christ, then finding the Christ, being sent by the Christ to preach to your brothers and sisters in the synagogue, and then being cast out of the synagogue. Excommunicated. We see it happening to the apostle Paul time and time again, from city to city, from synagogue to synagogue. This is what the apostles had to look forward to.

But it would get worse. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service. The Jews were, for the most part, sincere in their persecution of the apostles and of Christians in general. They really thought they were doing the right thing, thought they were serving God by arresting and executing Christians.

How could they do those things to God’s own chosen preachers? Jesus states it bluntly. These things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. Knowledge of religion is worthless; sincerity in one’s religion is worthless; faith itself is worthless, if it is not placed in the true God, if it is not exercised in service of the true God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the One who is revealed both in the Old and in the New Testament. Sadly, tragically, the Jews who rejected Jesus as the Christ demonstrated that they never really knew God the Father, either, and the apostles had to be prepared to die at their hands.

Now, if that was true of the Jews, it would also be true of the Gentiles. We read in the book of Acts how the Gentiles, too, would seek to kill the preachers who preached Jesus as the only true God and who exposed their pagan idols as false gods.

So, again, imagine that you’re one of the apostles. And you’re being told ahead of time that the great mission on which you are being sent will end in your rejection and your death. How on earth did they ever agree to it?

They agreed to it, because they actually believed their own testimony. They were convinced that this Jesus whom they would preach in the world was the true God. What’s more, after seeing Him risen the dead, they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that, no matter how poorly they were treated in the world, Jesus would raise their dead bodies, too. And, of course, they were also persuaded that to deny Jesus before men, to fail to testify when called upon to testify, would be a terrible betrayal of their Lord, for which they would have to answer.

But there was yet another reason why they were prepared to die for their testimony. Because Jesus had promised that it wouldn’t all be in vain. They would be rejected by most, but not by all. Through their preaching and even through their martyrdom, the Lord Christ would gather a little flock to Himself, a little flock of believers who would be saved from eternal condemnation and who would join them, the apostles, at the great Supper of the Lamb.

Here you are today, Christians who have been baptized and have confessed Jesus as the Christ. You are the joy that was set before Jesus, making Him willing to endure the cross and its shame. You are what motivated the apostles to testify and to face rejection and death for their testimony.

Now the question confronts you and me. What am I prepared to do? What are you prepared to do?

Are you prepared to devote yourself to reading and studying the apostles’ testimony? Or will you be satisfied with a cursory knowledge of Scripture? Are you prepared to keep gathering around the Word and Sacrament of Christ, no matter what may try to get in the way? Are you prepared to confess Christ in your daily life with your words and with your actions? And if so, are you prepared to suffer for it, to lose friends for it, to lose money for it, to lose your life for it?

You must be. No servant is above His master. No student is above His teacher. If you would be disciples of Christ, then you, too, must be ready to confess Him and to die for your confession. And if you’re willing to die for it, then you’ll certainly also be willing to lose lesser things than your life for it, won’t you, to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God?

You will be able to make the good confession and to present your life as a living sacrifice—or as a dead one—because you know that Jesus is the Son of God, because you know that Jesus became our Brother in order to die for our sins, because you know that He took up His life again and now reigns at the right hand of the Father. You will be prepared to confess Him and prepared to die for Him, because you know that He has conquered death, that He has overcome the world, and that your confession of Christ, in what you say and in what you do, is the very light that shines in the world through which the Lord Christ will build His Church and make His kingdom come. Amen.

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The King now sits on His throne

Posted on May 26, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of the Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

Ascension Day couldn’t have come at a better time. It brings with it a much-needed sigh of relief. In the midst of this world’s chaos and violence and senseless killing of children, both in and out of the womb, we celebrate today the fact that a good and righteous King has gone up out of this world in order to reign over this world and to prepare a place for us, a King who reigns, not by ridding the world of evil in this age, but by controlling all things, both good and evil, so that it all must serve His purpose of building His Church and preserving His people so that we make it safely to the coming age. In the midst of this world’s death-spiral, St. Luke’s words in the Book of Acts still ring out today in churches around the world, The former account I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day on which he was taken up.

 Did you hear what St. Luke said? “All that Jesus began to do and to teach until He was taken up.” Luke’s Gospel is the “former account” of that beginning. You know what Luke’s Gospel proclaims. How the God who made this world sent His Son into it, descended from Adam and Abraham and David, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. Why? For what purpose? To make it a nicer place to live? To set up an earthly kingdom where justice and decency prevail? Not at all. This world was doomed from the first sin of Adam and is destined for fire and destruction. The history of mankind is not one of evolution or progression upward toward a better and brighter world. On the contrary, the whole history of mankind is a history of violence and immorality, of regression and decay. Oh, there is a memory of righteousness inherent in our race, a conscience that speaks from within. You can sometimes see people striving for what is good and right. But in the end, sin and death are the defining qualities of mankind, not justice and righteousness and peace.

No, the things that Jesus began to do and to teach during His days on earth were not the establishment of an earthly kingdom. He came into this world to reveal God to us in person. The real God. Not a God who fixes man’s sin or ignores man’s sin. But a God who suffers for it Himself, who pays for it with His own blood, who makes atonement for it by His own death and offers sinners a refuge against the judgment and condemnation that their sins have earned for them. That refuge is Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, crucified, dead, buried, descended into hell, and risen again on the third day, now ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of God. Faith in Christ and the blood He shed for us is what reconciles sinners to God, brings us back together with Him, places us in His good graces and guarantees us a future life in the coming age that is far better than this present one. That’s what St. Luke’s Gospel account was all about. It was the beginning of the account of Jesus’ doing and teaching, but only the beginning.

The whole earthly life of Jesus, which St. Luke chronicles for us in his Gospel, from His birth all the way up to His ascension, was just the beginning, what He began both to do and to teach. The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the record of the continued doing and teaching of Jesus after His ascension into heaven. It was Christ who sent out the apostles and has been sending out their successors ever since. It was Christ who first sent His Spirit on Pentecost and who worked through the preaching of His apostles to spread His word and to build up His Holy Church. As He promised His Apostles, “On this rock I will build My Church.” And as you heard Mark record at the end of his Gospel, they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them.

The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and teach. Only now He does and teaches from His throne at the right hand of God from where He reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Everything that happens in the world, everything that happens in the Church is under the supervision and control of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Paul wrote this to the Ephesians, I pray that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The kingdom of God isn’t stagnant, isn’t dead, isn’t failing. It’s conquering the devil and the world, even now, with Christ as the King sitting on His throne.

But you don’t see that, not really. The reign of Christ at God’s right hand is a matter of faith, not sight. You don’t see how Christ is governing the affairs of this world or know the reasons behind what He does. You can’t see the Holy Spirit’s plans or predict when Christ will come back in glory on a cloud.

His disciples wanted to see, they wanted to know. “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” There’s so much they still didn’t understand. They wondered if, now that He had risen from the dead, Jesus might sit on an earthly throne in Jerusalem and reign over an earthly kingdom. They wondered if He might overthrow the Roman empire and make the nation of Israel independent and sovereign again, which shows they hadn’t been listening. Jesus had told them over and over, I am going away. I am going to the Father. My kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of heaven is within you.

So He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has established in His own authority. God has reserved for Himself the knowledge of when He will finally come and crush the kingdoms of this earth under His feet and remove His Church from this dying world. That time was not yet at the time of the apostles—they had much to do, and much to suffer first. And it has not yet come for us, either, though it’s much closer now than it was. God knows the work He still has to do with this world. That’s the very reason Christ ascended, to do that work for as long as it takes, according to the times and seasons known to the Father, until His whole Church is completely built and the world has had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.

For now, the ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Here we are, at the end of the earth from where Jesus spoke those words, gathered together 2,000 years later in the name of Him whom we have not seen, and yet have believed, gathered together—preacher and hearers, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hearing and honoring His Word, ready to receive His Sacrament of the New Testament, committed to living lives of love according to God’s commandments, committed to confessing the name of Christ Jesus in Las Cruces, in all Dona Ana county and New Mexico, and to the ends of the earth, as the ascended Lord Jesus gives us strength and opportunity. Where did we Christians come from? Where did our faith and our eagerness to confess it come from? It came from Christ Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as He has continued to send forth His Spirit in Word and Sacrament, as He has continued to give pastors and teachers to His Holy Church, as He has seen to it that the Gospel has been preached and continues to be preached among us.

No matter what the world does around us, no matter how it rages against Christ and His Church and continues to degenerate, no matter how much lawlessness abounds and the love of many grows cold, Christ Jesus has ascended into heaven. The King now sits on His throne at the right hand of God, which is not far away from us, but very close to us, hidden, but real, where all things are being placed under His feet, where He continues both to do and teach through His Holy Spirit, in His Holy Church, preaching sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins until He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Rejoice in the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus, all you Christians! Turn to Him, all you ends of the earth, and be saved! Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. Amen.

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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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