The joy of finally understanding redemption

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the week of Easter

Luke 24:13-35

The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Sunday afternoon is one that every Christian should know, just as well as you know the story of the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning. Let’s walk through it again this evening and have its lessons more deeply engraved on our hearts.

Early in the morning, the women who had seen the empty tomb, and Jesus Himself, had told the disciples in Jerusalem the good news. The eleven apostles were there, but so were some of that group of 120 or so believers in Jerusalem who were still counted among His disciples. Two of those men, one of them named Cleopas, had to leave Jerusalem that afternoon, to walk to the nearby village called Emmaus, about seven miles away, like walking from here to downtown Las Cruces. They were sad. They were confused. They were talking about everything that had happened with Jesus over the past week.

Suddenly, Jesus walks up beside them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not recognize Him. Did Jesus look different after His resurrection? Maybe a little, but not so much so that people wouldn’t recognize Him. When He met those women in the morning, they didn’t say, “Who on earth are You?” No, they rejoiced at seeing the Lord. So did the apostles later than day. This “restraining of the eyes” was a supernatural restraining; God wanted to convince them first through their ears, their minds, and their hearts that the Christ was supposed to suffer and die and rise from the dead.

And so Jesus didn’t reveal Himself to them immediately. He asked them what they were talking about, and why they were sad. They were surprised He seemed not to have heard about what happened to Jesus. Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem who has not heard about the things which happened there in these days?

What things? Jesus asked, like a teacher patiently guiding his students to the truth through questions and answers. So they told Him: The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. You can hear the grave, grave disappointment in their words. We thought Jesus was going to redeem Israel, but we must have been wrong, because instead of redeeming Israel, He was condemned and crucified by the leaders of Israel. How can a dead Messiah redeem anyone, from anything?

They were right to be disappointed, if, indeed, Jesus was still dead. A dead Messiah couldn’t help them, couldn’t deliver them from any enemies, couldn’t redeem them.

But they weren’t only confused by the death of the One whom they thought was the Redeemer. They were just as confused by the accounts of His resurrection. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see. They knew about the empty tomb. They knew about the women’s report. But that knowledge didn’t make them joyful, or hopeful. It just left them confused. And their confusion makes sense, in a way, because, if they didn’t understand why the Christ had to die in the first place, what were they to make of the reports of His resurrection? They were missing the “why” of it all, so they also struggled to process the “what” of Christ’s resurrection.

Using the Old Testament Scriptures, Jesus guided them through both the “what” and the “why” of His death and resurrection. O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Remember, the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus, and not just pointing to Him as a great Prophet, but also as Priest, and King, as the Son of God, the only Redeemer of the world, who would suffer and die for mankind’s sins, and then be raised to life to carry out our redemption in the fullest sense, to save us, through faith in His name, from sin, death, and the power of the devil, first spiritually, during this New Testament era, and then bodily, when He raises us up at the Last Day and destroys all our enemies. All of that was not only there in the Old Testament, but was the theme of the Old Testament.

As they arrived at Emmaus, the two disciples pleaded with this man who had joined them on their journey, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. So He went in with them, sat down at the supper table with them, took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. Who knows when these men had broken bread with Jesus before? Maybe they had been in the crowd of 5,000 or in the crowd of 4,000, when Jesus also took bread, blessed and broke it, and handed it out? Maybe they had eaten with Him on another occasion. Regardless, this is when God opened their eyes so that they recognized Jesus. And then He just vanished. Now that He’s risen from the dead, Jesus no longer subjects Himself to the laws of nature. As the God and Creator of nature, He does as He pleases with nature.

And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” Finally! Finally they understood God’s plan of redemption! They had known Jesus as a Prophet and as a miracle-worker. But until now they had not known Him as the Redeemer from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Until now they had not understood their own Scriptures, which they had known all their life, but which had only then been finally opened to them, so that they saw the Scriptures pointing to that very Man whom they had been following, to that Man who had been crucified two days earlier, to that Man who had been talking with them and walking with them along the road, and who had finally revealed Himself to them in the breaking of the bread. Finally they understood what redemption was all about. And they rejoiced in it!

The same Jesus who appeared to those two disciples, alive, remains today exactly as they saw Him then, still alive, still eager to guide His people through the Scriptures, so that we may know Him there first, before we know Him in person. Christ, our Redeemer, lives, and walks along the road of this life with us, too, having redeemed us by His blood, and also about to redeem us from this world so full of trouble. Find joy in Christ and in His redemption, which flows from His resurrection! Amen.

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The Redeemer rose to come to our rescue

Posted on April 5, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Easter Sunday

1 Corinthians 15:12-22,47-49  + Matthew 28:1-10

Dear baptized believers in the risen Lord Jesus, my fellow redeemed:

Yes, redeemed. Redeemed in the fullest sense of the word. Or, almost the fullest. We’ll come back to that in a moment. First, let’s walk through the familiar Easter story again, because our redemption, in every sense of the word, hinges on this simple story, which we do well to ponder.

Remember the women who made their way to the tomb early on that first Easter Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene was there, and another Mary, and Salome, Joanna, and maybe others with them. The faithful women who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and who had worked so hard to serve Him during His ministry, weren’t done serving Him yet. They went to Jesus’ tomb to show reverence for their Lord’s body, to do a better job wrapping it in the burial cloths, with the extra spices they had bought, because the men had had to hurry to get Him in the tomb before sundown on Good Friday, when the Day of Rest began. They weren’t expecting this to be the greatest day of their lives, or to be a day that would be celebrated for the next 2,000 years, with these women playing a prominent role. They expected to find Jesus there, still lying in the tomb, still locked in behind the heavy stone that had been rolled across the entrance, still wrapped in His burial linens, still dead.

But, hadn’t He told them, often, that He would rise from the dead on the third day? Isn’t that why the Jews had placed a guard there, to keep His disciples from stealing His body, since He said He would rise on the third day? Yes, but those words of Jesus never sank in, not for them, not for the apostles, either, just as His predictions of His death on a cross never sank in, until it happened.

When the women arrived at the tomb, they found an awesome sight. The soldiers who had been guarding the tomb were unconscious, lying on the ground. The stone had been rolled away from the entrance—by an angel, we’re told, the same angel they saw sitting there on top of the stone now, in pure white clothing and with a shining face. He had rolled the stone away, not to let Jesus out, but to let the world in, to see that the Lord was no longer there, no longer dead. The angel told the women as much. Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Not where He “lies,” but where He “lay,” past tense. The only thing lying in the tomb at that moment were the neatly folded burial linens that the risen Lord had left behind.

The angel also gave them a message: Go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. So they started back to the city. But Jesus suddenly met them along the way. Greetings! He said. And they took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. And He didn’t stop them. If He accepted people’s humble worship before He was crucified, in His state of humiliation, how much more now, in His state of exaltation, now that He has demonstrated, by rising from the dead, that He is the very Son of God, at whose name every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus repeated what the angel had said. Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. The last time the apostles had been with Jesus, in the Garden on Thursday evening, they had all abandoned Him. Peter had even denied Him three times. Yet, still, He called them “My brothers.” But, what’s so important about the meeting in Galilee? He had talked about it even before His crucifixion. Then the angel mentioned it to the women. Now Jesus says it again. I mean, He would see them later that same day, in Jerusalem, when He appeared to all of them except for Thomas, and then the next week to all of them, including Thomas, still there in Jerusalem. What would happen in Galilee? That’s where Jesus would begin the next phase of our redemption.

Matthew tells us what happened when they all finally met in Galilee. Jesus met with His eleven remaining apostles on a mountain, in Galilee, and commanded them to go and preach the Gospel to all creation, baptizing all nations and teaching them to observe everything He had commanded them. We sometimes refer to it as the Great Commission. But, what does that have to do with redemption?

We’ve been talking quite a bit about redemption this week. If you recall, Phase 1 of redemption—the incarnation of the Son of God in human flesh, so that He might save the human race from sin, death, and the devil—was complete. Phase 2, which included the perfect life of obedience on our Redeemer’s part, and His innocent suffering and death as the price or the cost that was necessary for mankind’s redemption—that was also complete, as of Good Friday. And with the resurrection, we have verification that Phase 2 was, indeed, complete. Without the resurrection, Jesus would have been a liar and a fraud, and you’d be on your own against the devil, and you’d still be in your sins, without any way to buy your way out of the devil’s kingdom, destined for an eternity in hell. But Christ has been raised from the dead. And that’s how we know that the world has been redeemed. That is, the cost for the world has been paid.

But redemption in the Bible includes more than paying a purchase price. In fact, the word is normally used in Scripture for actual deliverance out of danger, for rescuing someone from trouble, for bringing people into safety. The trouble, the danger we were in because of our sins was condemnation before God’s righteous throne, and being held in the devil’s kingdom, and being destined for death, and a death that would last forever. In order to rescue us, in order to deliver us and redeem us from that trouble, Jesus had to rise from the dead, for our justification, that is, in order to justify us before God, to make us righteous in God’s sight. How? By the Great Commission. By sending out His Gospel to be preached, and His Holy Spirit with the Gospel, to tell us the good news of God’s plan to redeem the world, and about the cost God has paid for our redemption, to draw us to faith in the Lord Jesus, who now stands as our living Mediator before God, urging us in the Gospel to seek the forgiveness of sins God has promised to all who believe in Christ, the risen Redeemer.

If you’ve been baptized in Jesus’ name, if you rely on Him to reconcile you with God, then you have truly been redeemed. As St. Paul says, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. You Christians, you believers in Jesus, have been redeemed, delivered, rescued, made safe from sin, death, and the devil. You have been justified in Jesus’ blood. And if anyone came here today, or is listening to this sermon, who hasn’t yet known the Lord Jesus as the Redeemer, now is the time to believe in the Lord Jesus, and you, too, will be saved.

That’s Phase 3 of our redemption, and baptized believers live each day in the knowledge and the peace of God’s forgiveness, the peace of knowing that you have been redeemed by God, in the fullest sense of the word—almost.

There is one phase of redemption that still remains, the fourth and final phase, and it depends on the resurrection of Jesus just as much as the second and the third phase do. St. Paul says, talking about the trials we face in this life, We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. The Holy Spirit, Paul says, is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. He’s talking about the redemption that happens on the Last Day, on the Day of the resurrection of all flesh, unbelievers to the resurrection of condemnation, and believers to the resurrection of eternal life, when our bodies are raised and fixed and made perfect.

As you heard in today’s Epistle, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. If our bodies don’t take part in Christ’s redemption, if they remain in the grave after we die, then there was no point to being a Christian at all. Death was victorious after all, because to be human is to be the body-and-soul creatures God created us to be! But now, Paul says, Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. That’s the part of our redemption we’re still waiting for, still hoping for.

And because Jesus rose from the dead, we know that He will also keep His promise to return for our bodies, to pick up the ones He once purchased with His blood and to take His purchased possession home with Him into a life we can’t even imagine yet. Then God’s plan of redemption, which He made already before the foundations of the world were laid, will be truly and fully complete, for all who have believed in the Lord Jesus and who remain in the faith until the end. The Redeemer rose from the dead to come to our rescue, and He lives to see that redemption through to the end. Amen.

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Do you believe this?

Posted on April 4, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for the Vigil of Easter

John 11:20-26

Now that we’ve walked together through the Word of God, through, basically, the whole salvation story, from the creation of the world in perfection, to the fall into sin with the promise of rescue through the woman’s offspring, to the destruction and salvation of the Flood, to Abraham, to Israel’s crossing through the parted waters of the Red Sea, to the prophet Isaiah, to Ezekiel, to Daniel, to the book of Romans, to John’s Gospel, the same question Jesus posed to Martha near the gravesite of her brother Lazarus is also posed to you: Do you believe this?

Specifically, do you believe that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Redeemer promised to Adam and Eve, that all the world’s history was pointing ahead to His coming, that He died for your sins and rose again to life on the third day? Do you believe this? Believe it!

And what about what St. Paul says about your baptism into Christ Jesus—that when you were baptized God united you to the death of Christ and buried you with Him in the tomb, so that you also may rise from the dead, as He arose, and so that, even now, you might live your new life for God, and not for yourself? Do you believe this? Believe it!

And what about what Jesus Himself said to Martha? Her brother Lazarus had died a few days earlier. And Jesus had allowed that to happen, had not come running when He was told that Lazarus was ill. He told her that her brother would rise again, and she took comfort in that, thinking that she would have to wait till the Last Day for it to happen. But Jesus had other plans. Better plans. Yes, Lazarus would rise at the Last Day. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. But then He added this: Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

This is like what Jesus said earlier in John’s Gospel: He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Well, that was Lazarus, wasn’t it? He had believed in Jesus, together with his sisters, Mary and Martha. That means that Lazarus had already risen from spiritual death to life, that he, as a believer in Jesus, already had eternal life. So in a very real sense, even though he died, he never really died. His soul was still very much alive, and kept safe by Jesus until the day of the resurrection of the body. And, if Jesus should choose to raise up his dead body before the Last Day, He could do it, and, in fact, He would do it. Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Do you believe this? He asked Martha. Do you believe this? He now asks you. The fact that you’re here this evening, keeping this Easter vigil, indicates that you do. And well you should! Because He who is the resurrection and the life, even though He died, yet was He raised back to life. And if He was able to take up His life again, after giving it up for the life of the world, then He most certainly is able to give you life, to sustain your life, and to see you safely through the sleep of death into the joyful waking of the resurrection to life. Christ has risen, and so have you, and so will you who call upon the name of your crucified and risen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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The cost of our redemption

Posted on April 3, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Good Friday

Three months before Jesus was born, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, rejoiced at Jesus’ conception and sang these words, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people.” What did he mean? How had the Lord redeemed His people? He had redeemed them by fulfilling what we might call “phase 1” of His plan of redemption, the “rescue” of the human race from sin, death, and the power of the devil. He had come to their rescue, in person. The Redeemer of sinful human beings had to become a human being. That phase of our redemption is what we celebrate at Christmas, although, in reality, it took place nine months before Jesus was born.

What we remember on Good Friday, what we ponder, what we celebrate is the completion of Phase 2 of our redemption: the cost that had to be paid.

There’s a Psalm that says, “No one can by any means redeem another, nor give to God a ransom for anyone, for the redemption of their souls is costly.” All have sinned. The wages of sin is death. Therefore, everyone needs to be redeemed, ransomed, rescued from sin and death, but no one could pay the cost. No one, except for the Son of God. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” It took the perfect, sinless life of the Son of God to redeem sinners, a life of perfect love and obedience to God at the expense of His own comfort, His own glory. Jesus paid that cost every day of His life. But it also took all the humiliation you heard about in today’s Passion readings. It took the denial and betrayal and abandonment of friends. It took the hatred and scheming of His enemies. It took the anguish of His soul in the Garden, and the anguish of His body as He was whipped and beaten and crowned with thorns. It took all the injustice He suffered at the hands of men, and the mockery of the soldiers and of the priests of God. It took the agony of trying to bear His own cross toward the hill called Calvary, of being nailed to the tree and left to hang from it. It took the feeling of being forsaken not only by men but by His own Father in heaven. It took experiencing the wrongness of death. That’s what it took to redeem mankind from sin and death. That was the cost.

But now, “It is finished.” The second phase of our redemption is complete. The cost has been paid. Forgiveness for all people has been earned. Reparations have been provided, the only reparations God will accept: the atoning sacrifice of His beloved Son. That means there is no price left for anyone to pay. You don’t have to atone for your sins or earn God’s forgiveness, either by your suffering, or by your works. In fact, you dare not try. Only the obedience, suffering, and death of the Lord Jesus Christ is acceptable to the Father on behalf of sinners. And now He invites you to use that sacrifice, to approach Him through Jesus’ sacrifice, through Jesus’ death, as the high, high cost of your redemption. In other words, He invites you to put your faith in the Lord Jesus, to believe in Him who has redeemed you.

And what do you mean when you say, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Let it mean exactly what our catechism says it means in the Second Article, the article of Redemption:

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord; who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death; that I should be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from death, lives and reigns forever and ever. This is most certainly true. Amen.

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This is the blood of the covenant

Posted on April 2, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Exodus 24:1-11 + 1 Corinthians 11:23-32 + Matthew 26:1-30

We always make the Passover connection with Maundy Thursday, and rightly so. Jesus celebrated His last supper with His disciples as a Passover meal, before He went on that night, and into the next day, to suffer and to die. It was no accident that Jesus’ suffering and death happened in connection with the Jewish Passover. God had been painting the picture of His Son’s sacrifice into the minds of the Jews for some 1500 years, teaching them to think back to all those one-year-old, male, spotless lambs that were slaughtered in Egypt, and whose blood was marked on the doorframes of their houses, so that the destroying angel, who was targeting all the firstborn sons throughout Egypt, would see the blood on the Israelite houses, and pass over, leaving the house unharmed. All of that was to make them ponder the true Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sin of the world, whose blood marks the door of our hearts when we believe in Him as our sacrificial Lamb. And He keeps us safe from the power of the devil. The new Supper, the Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted on that Maundy Thursday night, is certainly connected to the Passover.

But we shouldn’t forget also its connection to Mt. Sinai. A couple of months after the Passover, the Israelites were gathered around Mt. Sinai with Moses. You heard the account in the Lesson this evening from Exodus 24. God had just given Moses the words of the covenant He made with Israel there at Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments and all the other laws and statutes that made up that first covenant. And then, as you heard, God called Moses and the elders of Israel to the mountain. Animals were sacrificed. And Moses took the blood of those sacrifices, sprinkled half of it on the altar, sprinkled the other half on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.

It’s gruesome when you think about it, isn’t it? Moses walking around with a pale of blood, sprinkling it on the people, and afterward looking around at your fellow Israelites with dots of blood on their faces and on their clothing. It was supposed to be gruesome. Blood stood for death, and only death could seal a covenant between God and sinful men. That’s because of how wrong the world had become since God first created it.

There was never supposed to be any shedding of blood, or any death at all. God made both animals and man to live in harmony with one another and with Him. There was no need for a covenant in the beginning, with Adam and Eve. They were already sinless and in perfect harmony with God. But after they sinned, that harmony was broken, and death was their sentence, and since sin and death spread to their offspring, death was required to establish a covenant of peace with God. God alluded to that death when He told Eve that her Offspring’s heel would be bruised by the serpent. And so, when He finally went to establish a covenant with Israel, God required blood and death: the death of animals, whose blood was sprinkled first on the altar, then on the people who were included in the covenant.

But the death of animals doesn’t earn peace with God, or pardon in His courtroom, or a place in His family for His enemies. Only one death can do that. The death of Jesus Christ, our Lord, which would take place on the very same day, according to Jewish reckoning, on which He instituted the new covenant in His blood. His body would be given into death, and His blood would be shed on the cross, which was the fulfillment of every altar that was ever made, the true altar of sacrifice where the forgiveness of sins was earned for all. Moses sprinkled the altar with the blood of animals. But Jesus drenched the altar of the cross with His own, precious blood, the true cost of our redemption.

And then, like Moses, Jesus applied the blood to His disciples and said, “This is My blood of the new covenant.” He applied it to them, not by sprinkling blood from His veins onto His disciples, but by uniting His body and blood, about to be given and shed, to bread and wine and then giving it to them to eat and to drink.

Just as the blood Moses sprinkled onto the Israelites was not the figurative blood of the covenant, but the actual blood—taken from the same blood that was also applied to the altar—so the blood of Jesus given to us in the Sacrament is not figurative blood, but His real blood, shed on the cross as the redemption price for our sins. But it’s given to us, not in a gruesome way, but in a very pleasant way, a “sacramental” way, as part of a meal of bread and wine—bread that sustains life, and wine that brings joy. If you recall, the elders of Israel also celebrated the institution of the first covenant with a sacred meal together in the presence of God. How much more reason we have to celebrate, because the new covenant is so much better than the old!

The first covenant was founded on laws and statutes and ordinances to be obeyed by Israel; the new covenant is a covenant of laws fulfilled for us by the Lord Jesus. The first covenant threatened death for disobedience; the new covenant offers us forgiveness for our disobedience. The first covenant was sealed with the blood of animals; the new covenant, by the blood of the Son of Man. The first covenant promised Israel a piece of earthly land; the new covenant promises Christians a heavenly country. The blood of the first covenant was applied only once; the blood of the new covenant is applied “as often as you drink it,” to all Christians who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Jesus’ disciples surely didn’t understand Jesus’ meaning on that first Maundy Thursday, because His body and not yet been given into death, and His blood had not yet been shed, and they still didn’t understand that it had to be. But in less than 24 hours, they would see what Jesus meant, see His body hanging on the cross, see His blood flowing freely. But they didn’t have to understand yet on that Thursday night. All they had to do was eat and drink, listen and believe.

The same is true for you. In a few moments, you’ll hear the Savior’s voice speaking again over bread and wine. This is My blood of the new covenant, or, as St. Paul records it, This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. You don’t have to understand it. Just eat and drink, listen and believe. And know that everyone who eats and drinks, who listens and believes, is included in this blessed covenant of the forgiveness of sins, first instituted on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, on the same night in which our Lord was betrayed. May the true body and blood of Jesus strengthen you and preserve you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Depart in peace. Amen.

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