These are the historic lectionary readings we will be following at Emmanuel for the Trinity season, as listed in The Lutheran Hymnal. Clicking on the “Day” in the Church Year will open a page with all the Propers displayed for that day.
Pentecost is the feast of the 50th day. And it’s a feast filled with fire. It began as an Old Testament feast. It was 50 days after the children of Israel left the slavery of Egypt that they arrived at Mt. Sinai, where God came down on the mountain in a thick cloud and darkness, with a loud trumpet blast, and with fire that set the whole mountain ablaze. It would have been an awesome sight. And over and over again in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the Israelites of how God spoke to them that day from the midst of the fire and gave them His commandments, that they should walk in them and keep them always. The fire impressed on them that God is a consuming fire, and utterly serious about His commandments. The fire of Sinai blazed fear and dread into the hearts of the people.
Pentecost is also the Feast of Weeks, seven weeks after the Passover, when God commanded Israel to gather, each year, at the sacred altar of His tabernacle (or His temple), on the 50th day and bring, together with their grain offerings, seven lambs, a bull and two rams, to be offered up in fire and flames as a burnt offering, to make atonement for their sins. The fire of the Feast of Weeks was to emblazon on the hearts of the people the reality that sin brings death. Someone has to be given over to the fire because of your sins: either the sacrifice that God supplies, or you.
But we, as Christians in the New Testament, celebrate Pentecost differently. We celebrate Pentecost because the Law of God has been fulfilled by Christ, for us. We celebrate Pentecost because atonement for all sins has been made by the blood of Christ. We celebrate Pentecost as the feast of the 50th day after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We celebrate Pentecost as the day on which Jesus fulfilled His promise to send His Holy Spirit from the Father in heaven as a lasting gift to His Church on earth, a gift that has empowered the proclamation of God’s Word since that day until now, and will remain with us until Jesus returns.
This New Testament feast called Pentecost is also a feast filled with fire, but it’s a different kind of fire; the new fire of the Holy Spirit.
When the believers were all gathered together in Jerusalem, ten days after Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit came upon them and made His coming known by signs: the sound of a rushing wind, fire that came down and separated into individual tongues of fire that rested on believers, and the gift of tongues—foreign languages that were miraculously spoken by the believers and understood by the foreigners visiting Jerusalem that day. But this fire was different than the fire of Sinai and the fire of the Feast of Weeks. This fire wasn’t sent to frighten people away from God, but to bring comfort to Jesus’ disciples, and understanding, and boldness and power. This fire wasn’t sent to proclaim the laws of God that show people their sins, but to announce the Gospel of forgiveness through faith in Christ Jesus. This fire wasn’t sent to burn up sacrifices for sin in order to make atonement for the people, but to kindle the fire of faith in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus, who is the atonement for the sins of the world, and to kindle the fire of love for God, who gave His Son into death for His enemies. The new fire of Pentecost is the fire of the Holy Spirit.
There are two aspects to the work of the Holy Spirit, two ways in which this fire behaves, and both of them are wrapped up in the fiery Word of God. “Is not my Word like fire?, declares the Lord.” That’s why this fire took the form of tongues. That’s why the sign of the Spirit’s coming was the speaking of God’s Word in foreign languages. The Holy Spirit accompanies the preaching of God’s Word. And God’s Word always carries with it the Holy Spirit.
The two things the Holy Spirit accomplishes through the Word of God are (1) regeneration and (2) renewal; the conversion of unbelievers to faith in Christ, and the strengthening of believers so that they remain in the faith. And it all goes back to Baptism. Paul says to Titus in chapter 3: God saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. He works on unbelievers from the outside, burning His Word into their hearts to convict them of their sin and to drive them to Christ, who died for them, so that they may believe and be baptized and so seek shelter behind His righteousness. Then, once He’s caused a person to be born again—that is, brought to faith in Jesus and given new life—He begins to work on believers from the inside—still through the same Word and Sacraments, but now as the Person of the Godhead who makes His permanent dwelling in our hearts and works on us and works with us for the remainder of our earthly life. We see both aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work on the Day of Pentecost, and also referred to by Jesus in the Gospel.
Here’s how Jesus put it in the Gospel: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. This love for Jesus—where does it come from? By nature, we don’t love God. On the contrary, we hear His Word and we want to run away and hide, like Adam and Eve did when they heard God’s voice in the Garden of Eden. Why? Either because we want to be left alone to keep living in our sins, without being bothered by this God and His commandments, or because we think God is a wicked God, an unjust judge, and so we want nothing to do with Him.
But then the Holy Spirit comes in the Word of God and shows us that, no, we are the wicked ones, the loveless ones, the rebellious ones. God is good; we are not. He reveals God’s love to us in the Person of Jesus—that, for love of this fallen world, God sent His only-begotten Son into the flesh to suffer and die for us, who were His enemies, in order to become reconciled with us through Christ. The Holy Spirit is responsible for revealing the love of Christ to us, and the love of the Father who sent Him. It’s that love of God for us that brings us to love Jesus. That’s the first work of the Holy Spirit in us, to kindle faith in our hearts through the Word, to forgive us our sins, to cause us to be ‘regenerated’ or ‘born again’ as God’s children, who love Jesus, who first loved us.
Then Jesus describes the second work of the Spirit, the work of ‘renewal.’ And My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. This is God’s special gift for those who believe in Him, for those whom He has adopted by faith and Holy Baptism, that God Himself makes His home with us and dwells in us in the Person of His Holy Spirit. As Paul says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?” Or as Peter would announce to the crowds on the day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” As Paul says to the Ephesians, “Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
Now, what does the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit do for us? What is this work of renewal that the Holy Spirit does? Jesus says, These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 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 things that I said to you.
See how Jesus describes the work of the Spirit. First, He is the ‘Helper’ or the ‘Comforter.’ He only comes to those Christians who need help, who need comfort. And how does He comfort us? By reminding us of Jesus and of Jesus’ words; by helping us to understand God’s Word, to understand how all the words of Scripture point to Jesus, to understand God’s love for us in Christ and the significance of Jesus’ promises to us. He comforts us by daily and fully forgiving all sins to all believers in Christ, and by assuring us of God’s love and faithfulness.
Then, as the Spirit dwells in us, He is constantly holding before our eyes the life of Jesus, the holiness of Jesus, first as that which covers our sins and makes us children of God, and second, as the pattern for us Christians to follow. He renews us in love and molds us into the image of Jesus, so that we can no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. That living in love, living for Christ, imitating God—it isn’t perfect in this life. Christians struggle daily against the sin that clings to our flesh. It’s a renewal that isn’t finished in this life, but it has certainly begun and must increase in us so that we struggle against sin. Where there is a struggle, there is the Spirit! Where there is no struggle—where we give in to sin and let it rule over us, there the Spirit is not.
Another part of the Holy Spirit’s fire of renewal is that He makes us bold to confess the name of Jesus, and unafraid. What did Jesus say? 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. God doesn’t remove danger and affliction from our lives. Instead, His Spirit comforts us and gives us peace and courage to do what is right in the face of wrong, because we have a gracious Father, whose love matters more than life itself.
That was the newfound peace and courage that now filled Peter and the other Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, to stand up and proclaim the name of Christ crucified and risen.
And then, what happened? It started all over again. The Spirit, working through the Apostles’ words, brought His fire to the crowds in Jerusalem and burned through their stony hearts and kindled faith there, too, so that 3000 were baptized on that day, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins. And then they, too, received the gift of the indwelling Spirit. So it is that this new fire of the Spirit spreads like wildfire throughout the earth. It’s all the Spirit’s doing, from the first kindling of faith through the Word and the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, to the continual gift of renewal in believers through the Word and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Being renewed daily by the Holy Spirit, we lead godly lives and speak God’s Word, according to our vocations, and so the Holy Spirit uses us to call more people into the Church. It’s a cycle, a process that goes on and on and on.
This is the new fire of the Holy Spirit, and it blazes wherever this Gospel is preached, wherever the Sacraments are rightly administered. The Spirit brings Christ to us, and with Christ, forgiveness of sins, life, salvation, rebirth, adoption, love, courage, peace in the midst of strife, joy in the midst of sorrow, fearlessness in the face of death—all God’s gifts of grace, and all that we need to make it safely through this life to our heavenly home. These are the Pentecost gifts for which we give thanks on this feast of the 50th day. Amen.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 + 1 Peter 4:7-11 + John 15:26-16:4
On this Sunday after the Festival of the Ascension, permit me to read a rather long portion of Revelation 12 to you. There are many figures of speech and images in Revelation that are hard to understand, but there are several images in this section that we can identify with the help of Scripture, including a reference to the ascension of Jesus and the very persecution that Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of His disciples who remain here on earth, who hold to the testimony or the “witness” of Jesus. As I read from the Revelation of St. John, listen for references to “the woman,” that is, the Church, “the Child” that is born to the woman, that is, Jesus, “the dragon”—Satan and His forces.
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. 12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Did you notice how these words from Revelation correspond to Jesus’ words in the Gospel? The devil would persecute the Child of the woman and try to devour Him. That happened throughout the Old Testament as the devil kept leading Israel astray, to keep the Messiah from being born. But He was born. And the devil tried to exterminate Him right away by the hand of King Herod, but the devil failed. The Child would grow up to offer His life as a sacrifice on the cross and so crush the serpent’s head. He would rise from the dead victorious and then would be caught up to God and His throne. So Jesus, after completing His work of redemption, ascended into heaven and is seated on His throne at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Meanwhile, the woman, the Church, still here below, is fed and nourished during this New Testament era by the very Spirit of God as He feeds us with Word and Sacrament.
Then the war in heaven is described as the devil, the accuser of God’s children, was cast down, no longer able to accuse believers in Christ before God’s judgment seat, because the blood of the Lamb has paid the price for our sins and the Spirit of God has testified to us about Jesus, that He is the Son of God, that He died for us, that He reigns at God’s right hand, that He is the very Throne of Grace where we find forgiveness, where we flee for refuge and are sheltered from the condemnation that we justly deserve.
So the devil, now cast down to the earth, unable to accuse God’s children in heaven’s courtroom, seeks to devour the woman and her offspring—the Church and her members. He seeks to separate us from Christ through temptation, through false doctrine and through persecution. That’s the very persecution that Jesus told His apostles they would face on this earth after He went to the Father.
And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.
The Apostles would preach. They would bear witness; they would testify to Jesus Christ and His once-for-all sacrifice for sin. They would bear witness of His death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and of the coming judgment of mankind. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. And until Jesus’ return, the testimony of the Apostles will be heard throughout the world and believed by some. Some will keep the testimony of Jesus, and preachers will be sent to preach His saving name until the Day of Judgment arrives.
And where the testimony of Jesus is, there is the Church, the Bride of Christ. But just as the devil hates Christ, so he also hates the Bride of Christ. Where the Church is, there the dragon also will be seeking to devour it. Where the testimony of Jesus is, there will be the cross of persecution.
And notice, it isn’t just persecution from the secular world or from the political realm. Jesus warns His disciples, They will put you out of the synagogues and think they are serving God when they put you to death. He isn’t just talking about the Jewish synagogues here. He’s talking about the false church, the churches that are called “Christian” but that end up persecuting the true Christians and the Christian Gospel. Luther applied this to the papacy and the monks and Roman priests. They appeared to be the true Church, but they raged against the true Gospel and excommunicated Luther and pastors like him who held to the testimony of Jesus Christ.
You know this happens still today. The false Church still persecutes the true Church. The false Church looks big and impressive while the true Church looks battered and weak. The false Church excommunicates and ridicules and suspends those who preach the truth of Christ, and they actually think they are serving God when they do it.
How can that be? Because, Jesus says. These things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. They claim to know the Father. They claim to know Jesus. But if they knew Jesus, they would repent of their persecution and receive the Word of the Apostles in faith. Christ does not persecute Christ. The devil persecutes Christ. The Gospel does not condemn the Gospel. Satan condemns the Gospel.
But then, remember. Jesus told His Church about all this ahead of time. It’s part of His plan, to let the devil do his worst. As the hymn says, “He can harm us none. He’s judged; the deed is done. One little word can fell him.” Take comfort! We have a Savior who has conquered death, has ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of God, and our Good Shepherd is not idle. He reigns and He rules. And He sends the Helper into our midst, the Holy Spirit of God! He feeds and nourishes His own with His life-giving Spirit in this Word that you’re hearing, in this Sacrament of the Altar. He sees to it that the devil is still chained, so that the dragon can only go so far. He rescues us out of this world through the sleep that is sometimes referred to as “death.” And just when it seems that the little flock will be exterminated by the false Church, by the world, by the devil himself, then Christ’s kingdom will be revealed.
Now, on this Mother’s Day, when we give thanks to God for His gift of caring moms everywhere, would you consider how God honors motherhood with the words you heard from Revelation 12? God uses a woman to represent the beloved Bride of Christ, His Church. And just as Christ Himself was born of a woman, so we who have been born again by water and the Spirit, are called the woman’s offspring; our mother is the Church. She is battered and beaten and underappreciated in this world. She prays for her children, she rejoices in those who remain faithful and her heart breaks for those who prove faithless. She is persecuted and grows weary as she waits for her Husband to come to her and to gather all her children together. She is weak and powerless, but Christ is strong and will never abandon her. He loved the Church and gave Himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
You are offspring of this mother, holy and without blemish, through faith in Christ Jesus. And if you keep reading in the Book of Revelation, you will see that the whole message of the book is this: that the Church on earth will suffer greatly from the dragon’s attacks and will appear to be defeated. But all the while, Christ is working in all things for the good of those who love Him. And in the end, when Christ appears, the dragon will be cast out forever, and the Church will be victorious, through Him who loved us. Amen.
Christians want to be where Jesus is. It’s the nature of a Christian. Not just to “believe” that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. Not just to “believe” that Jesus is out there somewhere. But to want to be where Jesus is, not to give Him things, but to receive mercy and help and forgiveness and guidance from Him, to receive comfort and peace from His presence. It’s why Christians long for Sunday morning, long to hear the Word of Jesus, to receive strength and guidance from Jesus, and to receive His body and blood in the Sacrament.
So it’s hard for us to understand how Jesus could say what He said to His disciples on Maundy Thursday evening. “It is to your advantage that I go away.” He had told His disciples on that Maundy Thursday that He was going to the Father, going to the one who sent Him, and they were sorrowful. But Jesus assured them, “It is to your advantage that I go away.” Why? Because “if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
This “Helper” must be pretty special if His coming is better for Jesus’ disciples than having Jesus Himself staying with them. Who is this Helper? And why is His coming so important?
This Helper is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. We make a mistake if we think of Him as a “less important” Person in the Holy Trinity. No, Jesus praises the Spirit highly, even as the Spirit brings glory back to Jesus. It’s the Spirit of God who comes in Word and Sacrament and brings Jesus to us, not just in one room in one city in one country, but to Christians around the world in every place. It’s by the work of the Spirit of God that the kingdom of Christ comes and is built on earth and continues to be built until the day when Jesus returns. What do we pray in the Lord’s Prayer?
The Second Petition: Thy kingdom come. What does this mean? —The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also. How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.
Thy kingdom come, we pray. But we’re not praying there for Jesus to return. In fact, we’re actually praying for Jesus to postpone His return until the Spirit has finished doing His work among us and in the world, His work of building the kingdom of Jesus, His work of spiritual conviction.
Jesus promises his sorrowful disciples that, after He leaves to return to the Father, He will send the Helper. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. How will He do this convicting? Not through physical force or violence. Not through political pressure or legal prosecution. Not through pounding the Ten Commandments into the laws of the land. See, this spiritual kingdom of Jesus is not a kingdom that comes visibly or with outward force, like the religion of Islam. It comes through the Word of God as it is preached among the nations, the “sword of the Spirit,” as Paul calls it. The Spirit will convict the world with words that cut to the heart. Christians have been no weapons, either of offense or of defense, except the spiritual kind, except for the Word of God that is sharper than any two-edged sword. The kingdom of Christ comes invisibly as the Spirit convicts and pronounces judgment upon the world through the Word.
Of what does the Spirit convict the world? He will convict the world of sin. It seems like that would be easy enough. Sin is everywhere. Sin is so obvious. Bombings. Abortion doctors mutilating newborn babies, and no one seems to care. Or worse, the same people who become appalled at those mutilations have seemingly grown numb to the millions of “regular” abortions of which our country approves in its laws. Homosexuality being not only tolerated in our world today, but celebrated and promoted. Greed and adultery and drunkenness and idolatry, sex outside of marriage—it’s the new normal and accepted practice in our culture. Yes, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin.
But it goes deeper than that. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin because they do not believe in Me. The unbelieving world may acknowledge some of its immorality as truly sinful and immoral. But the one sin they will not acknowledge as sin is what Jesus says here, not believing in Jesus. That is the chief sin. Take the nicest person, the most charitable, the most religious people in the world. The Holy Spirit convicts them all for not believing in Jesus.
Why is that the chief sin? Because faith in Christ is the only way to escape condemnation for sin. Sin is everywhere. It’s in our thoughts, words and deeds. It’s in everyone born into this world. But where there is faith in Christ, who died for the sins of the world, all sins are blotted out in God’s sight. Where there is no faith in Christ, there is only sin and condemnation and guilt. If the world would acknowledge its sins and believe in Christ who died for them all, then the world would be forgiven. But they will not. And so the Holy Spirit convicts them.
You, too, would stand convicted with the world, because no one here can claim to be sinless or more deserving of God’s grace than anyone else in the world. If you think you’ve kept your nose cleaner than others, if you want God to compare you with others and praise you for not being quite as sinful, then you will face His wrath and His strict judgment. Because to believe in Jesus is to acknowledge that you deserve nothing but condemnation from God, and yet to trust that, for Jesus’ sake alone, God will not condemn you, because He has taken your sins and paid for them all with the blood of the Lamb of God.
Of what does the Spirit convict the world? He will convict the world of righteousness. How is that? How can the world be convicted of righteousness? People do good things all the time. Yes, there are bad people out there. But there are also good people out there. Of course there are! Just ask them! There are people who are kind to others, charitable, hard-working, faithful spouses. Both Christians and non-Christians can be “good people.”
But that does not make a person righteous before God. What does Jesus say righteousness is? Because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. What’s that? Righteousness is Jesus going to the Father? No, no. Righteousness is me paying my taxes, right? Righteousness is coming to church! Righteousness is disapproving of all the immorality around us.
No. Jesus says that righteousness is wrapped up in Him alone. The righteousness that counts before God has nothing whatsoever to do with our good deeds. It is the righteousness of faith in Christ.
There’s a difference between being a “good person” and being a “Christian.” Everyone should be good and live outwardly according to the Law of God. But being a Christian means seeking God’s approval in Christ alone, who has gone to the Father. Christian righteousness is to plead only the righteousness of Christ before God. It’s a righteousness that can’t be seen, because it rests with Jesus, and we see Him no more. But that also means it’s a righteousness that’s certain, because it doesn’t depend on our being “good people.”
Nonetheless, Christians are becoming good people. Notice, I didn’t say that Christians are good people. Christians are grafted into Christ by faith, and so the goodness of Christ grows in us, like branches that grow from a vine. And so Christians are at the same time perfect in righteousness in God’s sight through faith, and growing in righteousness as we become imitators of God, as dearly loved children. The world knows nothing of this. Everything that does not proceed from faith is sin, God says. And so the Holy Spirit convicts the world.
Of what does the Spirit convict the world? He will convict the world of judgment. The world judges true Christians harshly. The world can’t stand to be convicted. And so it persecutes Christians and makes them carry a heavy cross. It will get harder and harder for Christians in this world as the world’s judgment approaches, as the Holy Spirit’s conviction spreads and reveals the wrath of God against all the ungodliness of men. And like a cornered wild animal, the world will lash out at God’s people in a final attempt to escape.
But they won’t escape because the ruler of this world is judged. Satan, the devil, is the ruler of this world. He cannot escape his judgment, because he stands judged already, and all who remain in his kingdom will share in his condemnation. Just when the cross that we bear as Christians seems unbearable, just when it seems like the world must win, then Christ will come with His help and comfort. Yes, at the end of the world. But even before then, He comes by His Spirit and promises that even here, even now, you will not be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, He will provide an escape so that you can bear up under it.
The Holy Spirit will accomplish this work. Powerfully and invisibly. And through His convicting work, some will feel God’s wrath and will repent and seek refuge in Christ before it’s too late. Some will come out of the world and come into Christ’s kingdom where we are safe from God’s wrath.
It’s hard, not to be able to see this or measure it scientifically. It’s hard, not to see Jesus and have Him here visibly among us, because Christians want to be where Jesus is. But as He told His disciples, so He tells you. It’s to your advantage that He removed His visible presence from among us. Because now we have His Spirit working powerfully among us and through us in the world, bringing Jesus to us in a real but invisible way, so that whenever we hear the Word of Jesus and receive His Sacrament, we are where Jesus is. The kingdom of Christ comes through spiritual conviction. And it is the Spirit of God who has brought you into that kingdom, where Christ rules in your hearts by faith, so that you can sing with Isaiah, “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.’” Amen.
