God has raised up the heavenly Cyrus

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Easter 2

Isaiah 45:1-13

On Sunday, we heard the Gospel about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. That title fits Jesus, not only because it describes so well His relationship with believers, but because it identifies Him as the Son of David, the great Shepherd-King of Israel, and as the LORD God Himself, as He reveals Himself in Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd. The title of shepherd is also most fitting for Jesus, because He is the true deliverer of Israel of whom Cyrus was a symbol. If you recall from last week, Isaiah 44 ended with a prophecy about the Lord’s “shepherd” named Cyrus, whom we identified as Cyrus II, also known as Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, whom God chose and sent before he was even born to return captive Israel from Babylon to Judea. We meet Cyrus again here in Isaiah 45:

“Thus says the LORD to His anointed, To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held— To subdue nations before him And loose the armor of kings, To open before him the double doors, So that the gates will not be shut.  So God referred to Cyrus as His “shepherd” in the previous chapter. Here, you noticed what He called him? The Lord’s “anointed.” And you know what the Hebrew word for anointed is, don’t you? It’s Messiah. The Lord says to His Messiah, Cyrus. Now, that word Messiah is used for several offices in the Old Testament. It’s used for prophets, priests, and kings, and it’s also used for the furnishings of the temple, which were anointed with the special anointing oil prescribed in the Law of Moses. But here the Gentile ruler named Cyrus is called the Lord’s anointed—anointed, not literally, but figuratively. That is, he was solemnly chosen by God and set aside for the special purpose of delivering His people from captivity.

You can see, then, how Cyrus was a type or a pattern of the coming Messiah, the Christ, the true Anointed One of God, sent to be both Shepherd and Conqueror, to deliver God’s people from our captivity to sin, death, and the devil and to shepherd us safely through this life. Some of the prophecies in this chapter are specific to Cyrus and Old Testament Israel, but most of the prophecies here also apply to Christ and the New Testament Church.

God promises to go before Cyrus and make the crooked places straight, removing all the obstacles to his conquest of Babylon. That’s the exact same thing God promised to do for the coming Christ by sending the forerunner, John the Baptist, to make the crooked places straight through the preaching of repentance. God promises to break in pieces the gates and the bars of Babylon. But in Daniel’s prophecy about the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, it’s Christ’s kingdom that breaks in pieces all the kingdoms of the earth. Here God says that he holds the hand of Cyrus and has called him by name. But in Isaiah 42 those same words were spoken, not about Cyrus, but directly about the coming Christ, “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles.”

The only thing said here that can’t be applied to the Christ is the phrase, “though you have not known Me.” Cyrus didn’t know the God of Israel. He didn’t serve the Lord intentionally. But Christ certainly knew the Lord as the eternal Son of God, as the one who is, as John writes, “in the Father’s bosom,” who is true God by nature. And He did serve the Lord intentionally, as we heard just this last Sunday, “I lay down My life for the sheep.” And a few verses later, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Rain down, you heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, And let righteousness spring up together. I, the LORD, have created it. You may not remember this, but that verse serves as the Introit for the 4th Sunday of Advent. Rain down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open and bring forth salvation. It’s a picture of Christ, isn’t it?, who both came down from heaven as the Lord our righteousness, and who was also born from the earth, born of a woman, to be the salvation of mankind.

“Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’? Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’ ”

Here God scolds Israel for all their past doubt, all their disagreement with how He rules the world, including His plan to allow them to be conquered by the Babylonians and taken into captivity. It really is arrogant for the created thing to criticize the Creator, like a lump of clay that thinks it’s smarter than the potter, that thinks it has the right to know the potter’s plans. It doesn’t. The Creator has every right to make what He wants and to use it how He wants to. This text serves to humble us all and to expose our arrogance for thinking that we should have some say in God’s plans, or, even worse, that we have the right to criticize His plans.

In His mercy, God has revealed many of His plans to us. He didn’t have to, but He did. He revealed to Israel the reason for their captivity and the general outline of His plan to rescue them from it. He has revealed to us the general reason for the suffering and death that we endure. But He has also revealed much of His plan to save us through Christ. As for the present chaos of this world, we don’t need to know God’s plan. We just need to trust that it’s good. And as for the future, God has revealed enough of that, too, to give us hope and sustain our faith. Let that be enough.

Thus says the LORD, The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons; And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me. I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, And I will direct all his ways; He shall build My city And let My exiles go free, Not for price nor reward,” Says the LORD of hosts.

Even though God doesn’t have to reveal His plans to us, His creatures, He tells us to ask Him, in this case. He wants us to know. The one who designed and stretched out this universe has chosen to focus His attention on His chosen people, to raise up an earthly savior for Israel—Cyrus, who would decree freedom for the captives. But as we’ve seen, that earthly savior was a symbol of the heavenly Savior, of Jesus Christ, who has decreed freedom for those held captive by sin, death, and the devil. The Lord designed and maneuvered the first four thousand years of human history to bring about Jesus’ birth, suffering, death, and resurrection, and has been working tirelessly for these last two thousand years to make sure that you and I had our part in the Savior’s kingdom and in His work of building it. God has raised up the heavenly Cyrus to save His people and has given you a place in His kingdom. Now trust the rest of the Lord’s plans for you and for this world, and know that the heavenly Cyrus will soon return to deliver God’s people from every form of captivity. Amen.

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The Good Shepherd’s shepherding, past and present

Posted on April 14, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Easter 2

1 Peter 2:21-25  +  John 10:11-16

St. John’s Gospel includes many pictures to help us understand the Lord Jesus better. He is the Word of God, who was with God in the beginning and who was God. He is the Bread from heaven, the Light of the world, the Door of the sheep, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Vine, and we the branches. It’s the Apostle John who also records the words of John the Baptist, identifying Jesus as the “Lamb of God” who takes away the sin of the world. But, how is He like a lamb? We learned that on Good Friday as He died on the cross and became the sacrificial lamb, the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the world.

But in another sense, Jesus is not like a lamb at all, because when a lamb is slaughtered, it has no say in the matter. A lamb doesn’t choose to be slaughtered. It doesn’t lay down its life for anyone. Its life is taken from it by others. It’s an involuntary victim. Not so with Jesus. In today’s Gospel, Jesus pictures believers in Him as sheep and Himself as Shepherd. I am the good Shepherd, He famously says. He is the good shepherd who voluntarily laid down His life for the sheep, and who also took up His life again in order to keep caring for His sheep for all eternity.

I am the good shepherd, says the Lord. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He calls Himself good in contrast with the bad. The bad shepherd, the “hireling” as he’s called in our Gospel, is not the owner of the sheep. He doesn’t care about the sheep. He’s a hired hand who’s only out there in the field tending the sheep because it’s a way to make money. He stays with the sheep as long as it’s convenient for him, as long as it’s not too much trouble. But if danger comes, he’s looking out for himself. He sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees, because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

Who is the hireling? He’s every shepherd or “pastor” who looks out for his own best interests ahead of the safety and security of the flock entrusted to his care. And there have been many, many of those over the millennia. But Jesus is not like them. The sheep are His. They belong to Him. And He does care about them.

Who is the wolf? He is the devil. And he has power over people because of sin, power to accuse them before God, power to hold their guilt over them, power to drag them to hell. And no one could be free from his power, because no one is without sin. No one is righteous, no, not one, the Psalm says. And as Isaiah wrote, we all like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, each one, to his own way.

When did we last hear those words? We heard them on Good Friday. Why? Because, as Isaiah’s prophecy continues, the LORD has laid on Him—on Christ, our good Shepherd—the iniquity of us all. Now tie those words to Jesus’ words: The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Willingly. Intentionally. Voluntarily. In fact, He came to earth in the first place for the very purpose of confronting the wolf and laying down His life so that the sheep might be saved. He laid down His life in every way, by living His life, not for Himself, but for us, and by giving His life on the cross for us. The Son of God took on our flesh and lived among us as both God and Man. He devoted His life to serving us by preaching the truth, the truth about us as sinners and about Him as the One who freely forgives sins to all who trust in Him. He laid down His life as the atoning price for our sins, and not only for ours, but for the sins of the world. You should picture your Good Shepherd bleeding and dying on the cross. That’s what it meant to see the wolf coming and to stand His ground for the sake of the sheep, so that He might be attacked and killed in their place. The good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep.

Of course, you should also picture Christ, your Good Shepherd, risen from the dead, perfectly healed and alive again on Easter Sunday—healed, though He kept the marks of His crucifixion, the nail prints in His hands and the spear print in His side, as He showed them to Thomas in last Sunday’s Gospel. Those are the scars of the Shepherd from His battle with the wolf, and even as He wants you always to remember His resurrection from the dead, so He wants you always to remember His crucifixion, so that you never look at sin lightly, or take for granted the price that was willingly paid for your redemption: the holy, precious blood of your Shepherd.

Jesus’ life on earth, and His innocent death, and His glorious resurrection are His great shepherding acts in the past. But He isn’t done shepherding His sheep. He has more shepherding to do. As you know, it was never Jesus’ plan to stay on earth in visible form and to shepherd His flock, from Jerusalem or from some other place. Imagine how sad that would be! A Shepherd who lived on the other side of the world from where you are, who had only so much time to spend with each one of His sheep. No, the Lord had a different plan for this New Testament era, with a different form of shepherding in mind.

Jesus says in our Gospel, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. But that “bringing” into the one flock didn’t happen, or at least, was far from being finished during Jesus’ life on earth. This is the bringing the Good Shepherd does through the shepherds whom He has been sending into the world since Easter Sunday and whom He will continue to send until all the sheep are found who are to be found, until the whole flock is gathered into the One Holy Catholic—that is, Christian—and Apostolic Church.

So it is Jesus who sends the shepherds, which is the meaning of the word “pastor.” Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My lambs. Shepherd My sheep.” And as Paul writes to the Ephesians, Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry. That means that every pastor of God’s Church is placed exactly where the Good Shepherd wants him, in every time and in every place, so that Christ might preach to men through the humble service of men, so that He might gather His sheep, minister to His sheep, forgive the sins of His sheep, and preserve them in His flock through that very same preaching and through the administration of the holy Sacraments.

So, too, it is Jesus who brings the sheep, who went looking for each and every one of you, who brought you into contact with His Church and with His Gospel, who brought you—or will bring you—to Baptism and to faith. I know My sheep, He says, and am known by My own. He knew you from before the foundations of the world were laid, and He knows you still. Even if no one else on earth truly knows you, He knows you—who you are, what you need, what you’ve done, and what you will do. And He also knows all who will believe in Him as His Spirit calls them through the Gospel, even if they don’t yet know Him. There is still time to know Him! The invitation still goes out, to everyone!

And now, as St. Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, the Lord calls you to do good to others and for others, just as your Good Shepherd did, and to be willing to suffer for doing good, just as your Good Shepherd was. That means living as the light and salt of the earth. That means taking this Christian faith seriously, living a life that stands out in the world, that stands out in goodness and kindness and generosity, that shines with truthfulness in all things, that honors God’s Word above all things. You will suffer in this world if you live like that. But then, you’ll just be walking in the footsteps of your Good Shepherd, following behind Him wherever He goes, first to shame and then to glory.

May the voice of the Good Shepherd ring in your ears today and every day. You know Him. Now follow Him. He will make you to lie down in green pastures. He will lead you beside still waters. He will restore your soul. He will be with you as you walk, even through the valley of the shadow of death. And He will follow you with His goodness and with His mercy all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

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The big announcement of redemption

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Easter 1

Isaiah 44:21-28

Now that we have finished our review of those key Holy Week and Easter chapters of Isaiah, chapters 52, 53, and 54, we can go back to looking at Isaiah’s prophecy in order again, and we’ll stay in order through the rest of the church year. Before Holy Week began, we covered the first 20 verses of Isaiah 44, where, above all, God excoriated and mocked the idolaters and revealed just how foolish it is to worship something that you’ve made with your own hands, to worship anyone or anything besides the only true God, the Lord, the actual Creator of the heavens and the earth, the who has revealed Himself in the Bible and who pledged Himself to the people of Israel, in order that He might accomplish His eternal purpose of bringing His Son into the world to save sinners.

We’re reminded again in these verses that the phrase “My servant” in Isaiah’s prophecy sometimes refers to Israel as a nation. Sometimes it refers to the ideal Israel, to the Christ, the perfect Servant of the Lord, who would rescue Israel, the imperfect servant of the Lord. It clearly refers to Israel here in these verses.

“Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.”

God speaks here to the people that He has formed, whom He has been cultivating since the time of Jacob. They seem to have been forgotten by God, as He has allowed them to be held captive in Babylon for 70 years, although He has explained them many times the reason for their punishment. But now, God says that He has blotted out their transgressions. That is, He will no longer hold them against Israel, would not keep punishing Israel in captivity. He is ready to show mercy to them and rescue them from their captivity.

Of course, this blotting out of transgressions points ahead to the great rescue that God would accomplish through the Christ, the blotting out of transgressions that takes place, not just for Israel, but for all baptized believers in Christ Jesus. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you. Return to me in repentance and faith, God says to all people, because I have sent My Son to die for your sins. “Return to Me,” or, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, “Be reconciled to God!”

Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth; Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And glorified Himself in Israel.

Why should the whole heaven and earth rejoice at God’s redemption of Israel from slavery in Babylon? Why should the whole universe’s happiness revolve around Israel’s rescue from Babylon? For two reasons: First, because it brings glory to the God of the universe, who prophesied this rescue and who would surely be able to carry it out, no matter who opposed Him. And just as importantly, God’s saving act of returning Israel to the land of Israel means that the Christ can come to Israel, as promised! And the Christ would be a blessing to all mankind, because He bore the sins of all and invites all to return to God through faith in Him. That’s why all the earth should rejoice at the birth of Christ and at the resurrection of Christ, not just on the holidays we’ve chosen to commemorate those events, but throughout the year and throughout our lives.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, And He who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

The Lord is getting His people ready for a big announcement. To do that, He reminds them who He is. He is the LORD, the great I AM. He is “your Redeemer,” the One who has always looked out for you and rescued you, even from your own sins. He’s the one who formed you, who knew you as a people and as individuals from the beginning of time. He’s the Maker of all things—the sole maker of heaven and earth. So what’s the big announcement from Israel’s Maker and Redeemer?

Who confirms the word of His servant, And performs the counsel of His messengers; Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’ To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’ And I will raise up her waste places; Who says to the deep, ‘Be dry! And I will dry up your rivers’;

God always confirms the word of His prophets and messengers whom He has sent. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah were such messengers. And they both prophesied, by God’s Holy Spirit, that Israel would be taken into captivity in Babylon and eventually released. Well, the prophecy of captivity had certainly been fulfilled. And now the other part will be also. He goes on,

Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, And he shall perform all My pleasure, Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” ’

Here it is. Here we come to it. The big announcement: The very name of the future King of Persia, Cyrus, who actually would say that very thing to Jerusalem, “You shall be built.” And to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.” Cyrus II of Persia issued that very decree in 539 BC, after conquering the Babylonians, who had been holding Israel in captivity for 70 years. We’ll see Cyrus’ name repeated in the next chapter. And, understand, Isaiah wrote these words 100 years or so before Cyrus was even born.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge problem for those who don’t believe in God, who deny the inspiration of Scripture. Such a detailed, accurate prophecy of future events is impossible. In fact, this is the main reason why unbelieving scholars simply deny that Isaiah was the author of these chapters of Isaiah. Since detailed prophecy is impossible, they say, therefore, this prophecy must be fake.

But did you catch that other description God gave to Himself? Who frustrates the signs of the babblers, And drives diviners mad; Who turns wise men backward, And makes their knowledge foolishness.

All the “wise men,” all the “knowledgeable men” of the world who refuse to believe God’s Word are turned backward; their knowledge is made foolishness by God. On the other hand, for us who believe that the God of the Bible is the true God and that the prophets were inspired by God the Holy Spirit, this isn’t a problem at all. In fact, it’s one of the many things that cause us to stand in awe of our great God, who holds past, present, and future in His hand and does as He pleases with them, who knows all things and guides all things to conform to His good plan for those whom He has chosen.

And as we’ll see next week, Cyrus himself, God’s “shepherd,” was a type, a pattern, of the coming Christ, whom God would send, not to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, but to build a Church throughout the world, a Church made of up sinners who have believed the Lord’s promise of redemption and forgiveness through faith in Christ Jesus, the Lord’s true Shepherd, who will guide His people out of the captivity of this corrupt and crooked world into the New Jerusalem that will come down out of heaven from God. That’s God’s biggest announcement. And it can’t happen too quickly! Amen.

 

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If Christ is not risen…

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Quasimodogeniti – Easter 1

1 John 5:4-10  +  John 20:19-31

As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty…If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. We could add to that list. If Christ is not risen, then Jesus was a liar. If Christ is not risen, then He is not the Son of God, not the King of anyone, not your Savior from anything. If Christ is not risen, then evil truly does triumph in the end.

Those thoughts must have hit Jesus’ disciples like a ton of bricks on that first Easter evening. In their minds, there was no “if” about it. Christ had not been raised. Being raised from the dead, especially on a permanent basis, wasn’t a thing, even though Jesus had prophesied that very thing on several occasions, even though the women had seen Him alive that morning, even though Peter, apparently, had seen Him already, too. In a way, it’s hard for us to comprehend how they could still be in disbelief. But that’s only because we have gotten so used to this story. And we have seen how the Church of the risen Christ has spread throughout the world—spread, largely, by men who believed so strongly in the resurrection of Christ that they were willing to abandon their homes, willing to be hated by their countrymen, willing to be tortured and killed for His name’s sake. We haven’t seen the resurrection, but we’ve most definitely seen the effects of it. Those first disciples had only the word of Jesus, and of the handful of people who had seen Him that day—which should have been enough! But wasn’t.

So they were gathered together in that locked upper room, fearing the Jews, because if the Jews could crucify Jesus, they could certainly crucify His disciples. And they weren’t wrong! The Jews eventually did persecute Christians and have them stoned and imprisoned and put to death. But the only reason to fear any of that is, if Christ is not risen.

Or, if you don’t know or believe that He’s risen from the dead, which was the case with most of Jesus’ disciples on that first Easter day. But unbelief and fear were soon replaced by astonishment and joy when the Lord Jesus appeared out of nowhere in the midst of that locked upper room and said, Peace to you!, and showed them His pierced hands and side, no longer painful wounds, but signs of the death that had now been overcome.

Peace to you!, or Peace be with you! More than just a Jewish form of greeting. On the night before He died, Jesus had told His disciples, 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. If Christ is not risen, then that peace that He left with them and gave them is worthless. But if He is risen, then it changes everything. It means that God is reconciled to sinners through Christ, that we have peace with God through faith in Christ Jesus. And, since Christ is risen, He is able to maintain that peace forever and ever. What do you think it means to have peace with the God of the universe? What do you think it means to have peace with the One who holds the keys of eternal life and the keys of eternal condemnation?

Speaking of keys, Jesus said again to the apostles, Peace to you. Then He said, As my Father has sent me, so I also send you.” We’ll get to the keys themselves in a moment. First, how had the Father sent Jesus? The Father had sent Him to accomplish a mission. Several missions, actually. He was sent, for example, to die for our sins. But that mission was accomplished. Jesus wasn’t sending the disciples to do that. What was the mission, then? It was to reconcile sinners to God, just as St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. Through Christ’s preaching, God the Father was reconciling sinners to Himself, calling them away from their sins to faith in Christ Jesus. The apostles were ministers like that, sent like that. More than ministers. Ambassadors for Christ, sent out in His name to reconcile sinners to God. That’s how Jesus proceeded to send them, the authority Jesus went on to give them:

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus wasn’t at that moment breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples. (Remember, the word “spirit” means “wind” or “breath”). He was showing them, vividly, that He would soon (50 days from then, actually) send the promised Holy Spirit upon them in a special way, to enable and empower them to carry out this ministry in His name, which is summarized in what He said next: If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, their sins are retained. This is basically a restatement of what Jesus had already said to His apostles earlier: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The apostles were sent out with these keys, with this office of the ministry, directly by Jesus. The ministers after them are sent by Jesus through the call of the Church. But the ministry is the same: to preach the Gospel, to baptize and forgive the sins of those who repent believe, and to pronounce judgment and the non-forgiveness of sins to those who don’t believe.

Now, the ministry of Christ, the ministry He has given to men, includes preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God. It includes teaching people the story of the world, from creation to the coming of Christ in humility to His coming again in glory at the end of the age. But the message centers in the preaching of repentance, which would be useless without the authority to forgive the penitent. And Christ’s authority to forgive sins to the penitent is useless, if Christ is not risen from the dead.

So Thomas was still in a bind. He wasn’t there to see Jesus alive again, or to hear Him speak. Worse, even though every one of the other ten apostles gave him their eye-witness testimony, he refused to believe and spoke those bitter but famous words of unbelief: Unless I see the nail prints in his hands, and put my finger into the nail prints, and place my hand into his side, I will not believe.

Now, if Christ is not risen from the dead, then a person certainly can’t be faulted for not believing in something that isn’t true. But if it is true, if Christ is risen from the dead, if He who has never once lied to you did exactly as He said He would do, and if the people you trust most in the world are all assuring you that it is true, that Christ is risen from the dead, and you still refuse to believe, whose fault is that? It isn’t God’s fault. Or the fault of the witnesses. It’s your fault.

Thomas, on this occasion, exemplifies the atheistic scientific age in which we live. I just watched an interview with a man who is trying to cheat death itself. He believes that, with the right scientific measurements and the right diet, suggested by science, and with the right scientifically developed therapies, he can solve the problem of death. When it was pointed out to him that Christians think they have already solved that problem, through faith in the risen Christ, he replied, “Show me the evidence.”

Dear friends in Christ, God has shown mankind a lot of evidence, both of His existence and of His faithfulness to His promises. But I ask you, when has it ever been enough? Adam and Eve walked with God and yet still rebelled against Him. Noah’s sons walked off the ark God told them to build and within a generation their offspring worshiped pagan gods. The Israelites who walked through the Red Sea on dry ground were worshiping a golden calf within two months. The Jews saw miracle after miracle from Jesus and still kept insisting. “Show us a sign! Show us the evidence that You are who You say You are!” You and I can see the universe in all its complexity, the human body and the human mind in all their wonder. We can comb through the Bible and see how everything that’s verifiable in it has been verified and yet the vast majority of the world continues to insist, “Show me the evidence!” The problem has never been a lack of evidence. The problem has always been blind unbelief.

So you can’t blame God for refusing to perform when people have demanded it of Him, can you? “Show me the evidence!” over and over again, even as they completely ignore His Word and His faithfully-kept promises. No, God chose not to reveal the risen Christ to everyone. As Peter says in the book of Acts, God raised Jesus up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.

Thomas was one of those chosen witnesses, so Jesus mercifully showed him the evidence He demanded. Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put your hand here and place it into my side, and do not be unbelieving any longer, but believing.” And Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” And then Thomas, and the rest of the apostles, went on to become witnesses in all the world of Christ’s. And the only evidence they were given to pass on was their own eye-witness testimony, combined with the words and promises of God in Holy Scripture which pointed to Jesus as the Christ. And that would be enough to convince everyone who could be convinced.

Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” In other words, blessed are you when you stop demanding more and more evidence, when you hear and believe the Word of God, which is the word of all the witnesses who saw the evidence firsthand, from Moses to the apostle John. More than that, it’s the word of God. Let it be enough! As St. John wrote,  To be sure, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in his name.” If Christ is not risen, then it doesn’t matter what you believe. But if He is, then it matters more than life itself. So believe in Christ Jesus, risen from the dead. Put all your hope in Him. Because He is risen, and one day you will see Him, too, just as Thomas did. All men will see Him. And all who have believed, all who have been born of God, who have already been victorious over the world by faith, will sit down with Jesus at a feast that will never end. May God grant that we be among them! Amen.

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God’s Word the foundation of faith

Posted on April 3, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Week of Easter

Acts 10:34-41  +  Luke 24:13-35

We spent a lot of time last week hearing the Holy Week Scriptures. It’s important to know the events of Holy Week. In fact, it’s vital for us Christians to know them. But it’s just as important to know the Word of God that prophesied those events ahead of time, which is why we also spent some time reviewing the prophecies of Isaiah. This is how the Holy Spirit works faith in a person’s heart, through the Word of God, through the prophecies and through the fulfillment of them. Faith comes by hearing the Spirit-inspired words pointing to the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. Faith has to be founded on God’s Word, or it will never last.

Two disciples were walking toward the town of Emmaus on Easter Sunday afternoon. One is called Cleopas, who is probably the same man who is called Clopas by the Apostle John. He was Jesus’ uncle, in fact, married to Mary, the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary, who was one of the women at the foot of Jesus’ cross, together with Jesus’ mother. We don’t know the other disciple’s name, but, like Cleopas, he was not one of the Twelve apostles. They had witnessed all the events of Holy Week, and then their hopes that Jesus might be the Christ were dashed when He died. Even the reports of the women that day and of the empty tomb weren’t enough to give them hope.

Why did Jesus not allow them to recognize Him as He walked with them? Why were their eyes “restrained” so that they did not recognize Him? Because the kind of faith they would need for the rest of their life doesn’t come from seeing. It comes from hearing.

And so Jesus walked through the Old Testament with them, as He walked on the road with them, making the connections for them between prophecy and fulfillment, between shadow and reality, even as we did last week. Using the Holy Scriptures, Jesus swept out the debris in their hearts, the debris of misinterpretation that plagued the people of Israel, the notions that the Christ would appear glorious at His coming, that He would restore an earthly kingdom to Israel, that He would take up the throne of His kingdom without suffering, without dying, and without rising from the dead. As they walked, they began to see the truth, that the Christ, whose coming was prophesied in the Old Testament, had to come first to suffer for sin, that He was to be like the Passover lamb, and like all the Old Testament sacrifices, shedding His innocent blood in order to keep safe all who believe in Him. He had to be lifted up on a cross, like the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert, so that all who look to Him in faith are saved from the serpent’s venom. He had to be like the tabernacle and the temple, God’s dwelling place on earth. And the temple of His body had to be destroyed and rebuilt in three days.

The hearts of those two disciples burned within them as they listened to the Word of God that Jesus spoke, and only then, after their faith was resting securely on the foundation of God’s Word, only then did Jesus reveal Himself to them and allow them to recognize Him. He didn’t first show them visible proof of His resurrection. He first led them to faith through the Word. Then He allowed them to see.

And so it is with us, too. We haven’t seen Jesus. But He has sent His Gospel out into the world, and His Holy Spirit has caused our hearts to burn as He shows us that all of Scripture was pointing to the cross and to the empty tomb of the Christ, so that we might believe in Him and be saved. That’s the message that brought us to faith, and it’s the same message and the same preaching of Law and Gospel that will bring others to faith. No programs, no activities, no gimmicks, no youth groups, no amount of training in apologetics, no Shroud of Turin will bring a single soul to be convinced of Jesus’ resurrection or to trust in Jesus for salvation. Only the Scriptures. Only the Word of God. Only the preaching that centers on Christ, and on Him crucified. And risen! According to the Holy Scriptures.

And if the Scriptures were telling the truth about the Christ’s death and resurrection, then you can be sure they are also telling the truth about Christ reigning at the right hand of the Father, and about His constant care for His Holy Christian Church and for every single baptized believer in it.

So even though you don’t see Jesus, listen to the Scriptures! Listen to the Word of God! And your faith will grow! And then, if you know someone who doesn’t know the risen Lord Jesus, don’t try to convince them with arguments and proofs. Just use the Scriptures. Tell the story of God’s Word. It’s the Holy Spirit’s only tool for bringing people to faith. And if we come to know Christ through God’s Word, then He will surely abide with us here on earth by His Spirit, until, after believing in Him through the Word, we see Him in person, with our own eyes, when He comes again in glory. Amen.

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