John 16:23-30

Asking in Jesus’ Name

Fifth Sunday of Easter/Rogate

May 21, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

It is unique to Christianity that we pray in the name of Jesus. This is for the simple fact that we believe, at St. Paul writes to Timothy that there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…”  Because of Jesus, we have the right and privilege to bring our wants and desires before our heavenly
Father in prayer. We pray in Jesus’ name, that is with faith in Him as our Redeemer. We pray with confidence, that is with trust and faith that for Jesus’ sake our prayers will be answered. It takes faith to ask for faith, forgiveness to ask for forgiveness. No one confesses his sins to God without expected God to remove them. Notice the confession we make in Church each week. We flat out say we are sinners and we deserve God’s wrath.  But this is not the confession of a scared person. It is a confident request that expects God’s grace.

This seems pretty basic to our understanding of prayer. Jesus Christ is the victor over the world. He has overcome the world. He is alive out of the grave and promises to bring us to the Father’s side. Yet, the tribulation and hardship continues while God delays the final judgment in order to get all His children to safety.  But we need not lose hope or worry, for Christ has ascended into heaven and sits in authority over all of heaven and earth.

It is in this context that Jesus tells His disciples, “in that day you will ask nothing of Me.”  Until this time, the Disciples had asked questions, but they had not prayed to the Father in Jesus’ name.  But now, things have changed for all eternity.  After the resurrection and ascension, the disciples will pray directly to the Father but do so through Jesus.  This brings to light the fulfillment of the 2^nd Commandment: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.  Rather than misuse it, we are to use it correctly, to use Jesus’ name to call upon God for every prayer, praise, and giving thanks. Because of the God-man mediator, our prayers are shaped by the name of Jesus given to us in our baptism. It is shaped by the Triune God: we pray to the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

So let us not underestimate prayer.  We sometimes think our prayers will do little good when faced against the odds of the world.  What is my prayer that it would change national politics? What is my prayer that it would change wars and famine and sickness across the world? What is my prayer that it would change a diagnosis of terminal cancer?

The power does not come from you nor your sincerity or passion of faith. It comes from Christ. Jesus is the power in prayer because Jesus is God.  Out of the Father’s love for His fallen creation, He sent His Son to restore creation.  If Jesus is not God, if He is not sent by the Father to save us from our sins, then calling out to Him in prayer is meaningless at best, and blasphemy at worst. But since we believe, along with the disciples, that this Jesus is the true Son of God sent by the Father, then it is true that all our prayers, all the promises of God, find their “Yes” in Christ.  To which we add “Amen” as the great word of faith. Amen is the confession that God’s promises are true, reliable, trustworthy, that when we pray in Jesus’ name, we have the promised yes in His name.  For the word Amen simply means “Yes, yes it shall be so.” Or translated into Lutheranese is means, “This is most certainly true.”

So pray in Jesus’ name.  Make your petitions in the name of Jesus, make them with boldness and confidence and without fear.  By your prayer creation is spared, by your prayer the devil is driven back. Don’t worry about making your prayers worded exactly right. Pray for what you want. You want to lose some weight? Pray for it. You want a different job? Pray for it. You want some ice cream, a new toy, a new friend. Pray for it. You want healing for yourselves or others? Pray for it. You want your relationships better and stronger and less conflict? Pray for it.

Christ gives us the invitation and command to pray, which carries His promise, “ask, and you will receive.” It is handing over the content of our prayers to God, giving up the control and the worry and the doubt because God is our Father. So pray for yourselves and for your family and for your friends and for your enemies.  It does not annoy your Father in heaven to hear the voices of His children. It is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior to hear the voice of His children. Lay your wants and needs before God, not as though He doesn’t know them, but that by pouring out your cares to the Lord, you may unburden and comfort our souls

Much of what you ask for might be trivial. What else would you expect from children? He knows what you actually need. He provides even when you don’t ask. The Lord loves to hear your prayer and He loves to answer for Jesus’ sake. He may not give you what you want, but He will answer according to your need, and His will will be done. His will for you is good, for He is gracious and merciful. His will is done when He sends us His Holy Spirit and He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die (SC).

God’s Word is first heard. It enters you, then it comes out again. He speaks, and then You speak His Word back to Him. Because it is His Word, we have our Lord’s assurance that our prayer in His name will be heard. We will find the Father’s heart wide open praying in Jesus’ name, and the Holy Spirit will speak the truth plainly so that we might hear and believe that this Jesus came from God, and that He came to save us and bring us with Him to the Father’s side.

John 16:16-22

Sorrow Turned to Joy

Fourth Sunday of Easter/Jubilate

May 2, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

On more than one occasion, Jesus stumps His disciples.  In our Gospel reading today, we have a good example of that.  Jesus tells them, “A little while, and you will see Me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” They have no clue what He is talking about, and like many students who are too embarrassed to ask their teacher, they turn to each other and find no answers.  But Jesus knew that they didn’t get it, He could tell they were dumbfounded.  And, like so many times, Jesus gives them an answer, though maybe not the answer they wanted.

You see, Jesus could have just told them that He was referring to His death, burial, and resurrection.  But no, instead He starts to talk them of the sorrow and the joy they feel as His followers.  He speaks of a woman in labor experiencing the sorrow that the hour has come for birth, but then the joy that overwhelms in that a human being is born into the world.  This imagery of labor and childbirth is not new.  The prophet Isaiah proclaimed of Israel’s suffering and deliverance in a similar way in 26:17-19, “Like a pregnant woman who writes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of You, O Lord; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”

God’s power does not stop at the grave. Christ is risen! At His command, corpses come to life. He can order the resurrection of a whole nation, a whole people, who are seemingly entombed forever in exile and oppression. Jesus’ work upon the cross and the resurrection guarantees that our bodies will also rise.  Those made righteous through faith will experience the resurrection of their bodies and life everlasting.  Those who refuse to believe in Christ, who would prefer He stayed in the tomb, will rise at the resurrection to everlasting punishment and condemnation.

But for a little while, we tarry here on earth in these mortal and perishable bodies. The Epistle for today teaches us to train ourselves in godly virtues while we await the final restoration of creation.  To endure through sorrowing and suffering and trials and temptations, and by doing so, give witness to the eternal joy of the resurrection. Some of the strongest witnessing that takes place is while a person is full of sorrow.  In the way that person handles it, where they look for help and comfort and peace.

Jesus’ disciples had hoped for a future like the past, and that Christ would ever be with them for guidance, teaching, and protection.  We sometimes hope for a future like the past. We romanticize bygone days, thinking of some heyday of the Church and society, with Walther League activities, churches full, shared values with the culture. 

Christ’s answer to this is to enter into suffering Himself, to bear our sorrow in Himself. To endure the sorrow of the grave.  To bring restoration to His people by the forgiveness of sins. It draws us closer to our Savior. When we’re stuck in the middle of sorrow with seemingly no end in sight, we are driven to our Savior. While the suffering and trouble can feel eternal while going through, Jesus reminds us that in view of eternity, this is but a little while. All of history, from Adam to Armageddon is but a little while in terms of eternity. We must never fall into the thinking that all this is permanent. We can never be so entangled with the cares of this world that we lose focus that these earthly things will come to an end. For as our theme for this our 100^th anniversary states, “The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” It is that eternal Word, the very Son of God, which brings a lasting and eternal joy, not just pleasure for the moment.

Jesus speaks of His death and resurrection to us today.  Because the same body and blood of Christ is in you by means of the Sacrament, like Jesus, the resurrection comes after tarrying in death for a moment. For Jesus, the grueling night of His passion gave way to the break of day on Easter morning. You too will arise at the break of the new day, the glorious Day of the Lord. For you are baptized, washed with the blood of the Lamb, clothed in the joy of the resurrection Because you have been united into His death and resurrection in Your baptism, your sufferings have become His and His works have become yours. So the Father now looks with joy upon you. He is pleased to call you His child. His is overjoyed to hold you in His arms.

Christ comforts His disciples that the coming change was not loss but gain. The approaching grief was to last for just a little while. Christ comforts us that the coming change in our world is not loss but gain. We will have grief as Christians. Christians will be out of harmony with the world, falsely accused for the sake of Christ, and the same sorrows will afflict us as people from the beginning of time.

What is the place of sorrow in the life of a Christian?  Now this is an important question. Sorrow is a result of the Fall of mankind into sin.  Sorrow is the lament over God’s creation so skewed by sin that it doesn’t function the way it should. We are bombarded why what we see and experience in a fallen world: a childhood that was not careful and fraught with sadness or loss, an adult like full of toil and trouble and worry, an aging body or mind that brings even greater anxiety about what comes after death or wondering why the suffering continues and the Lord doesn’t just call the person to their heavenly home.

Know this, then. No matter the sorrow you’re facing now, or the sorrow that you will have, you will be sorrowful, but Jesus promises your sorrow will turn to you. Joy in fellowship with our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, and with those who gone before us in the faith.  We have glimpses of these here on earth by the Gospel that point us to our eternal bliss. Because of Jesus death and His resurrection, only joy follows!

John 10:11-16

One Flock, One Shepherd

Second Sunday of Easter/Misericordias Domini/Good Shepherd Sunday/Quilt Sunday

April 30, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

There’s a children’s song that goes along the lines, “I just wanna be a sheep, babababa”. It’s a cute song, usually one of those sung in Sunday School or VBS.  Just a sheep.  Usually not a compliment. Blindly following someone or something. Not using your brain.  Just going along with the others.  Sheep aren’t the smartest animals. And what’s more, sheep actually have a purpose, and it’s usually not to the benefit of the sheep itself.  Sheep are typically used only for two purposes: wool and meat.

When we think about what a good shepherd is, then, we normally would say that “good” means “competent.”  He’s one who raises the sheep, feeds them, guards them, for his own good. It’s his way of life, the way he puts a roof over his family’s head, food on the table.  So really, now, who in their right mind would want to be a sheep, living under a competent shepherd who will just use you up for his own good?

So when Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd, He is taking this goodness to a whole deeper level.  This kind of goodness is foolishness to the world. No competent shepherd, no good rancher, would put his stock out to pasture, love them, pet them, feed them, and let them all die of old age. And even more, dying so that might live, or sending a son to die in their place.  That’s bad business, it doesn’t make sense to the economy of the world, nor to be benefit of the shepherd.

And yet this is just the kind of Shepherd we have as Christians.  One who dies for those who are His, who goes out in search of others to bring into His flock, who does all for the benefit of the sheep.  Jesus says right after our Gospel reading ends, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).

These sheep who belong to Christ are not blind.  They just don’t let their eyes distract them.  It is true, they tend to stick together in a sheepfold. They group together for mutual support and comfort, warmth and companionship, and so that they don’t get lost. They follow the voice of their Shepherd. Where this voice is heard, He calls and gathers sheep to Himself. Where you hear His voice? How does He feed you? Where does He wash away the muck and the mud you’ve rolled around in? How does He lay you upon His shoulders and carry you back to His flock? In the preaching of the Gospel and the Sacraments, you hear the voice of Your Good Shepherd calling and preserving you in the one flock under the one shepherd. 

This, then, is a basic definition of the Church: sheep who listen to the Good Shepherd, believes in Him, and is ruled by Him through the Holy Spirit.  We must be good sheep, made good by the atoning death and resurrection of the Good Shepherd, and grateful followers of Christ. The devil is constantly sowing his seeds among the true flock with the help of false teachers and false saints. Sheep do not attempt to fight the wolf. Nothing you can do, no matter how good it is, can help you stand against the wolf. We can’t outwit him and we can’t out fight him. He’s been around a lot longer than us. The only thing we can do as sheep is to run away and hide behind our Shepherd because that is His purpose and mission.  Apart from the Good Shepherd there is no deliverance or help.

When you are attacked by your sin, by the world, and by the devil, if you try to stand and fight alone you will be devoured. Rather, run to Jesus, to His voice calling for you, to His Word guiding you.  Insist on only eating in the Lord’s pastures. That is to say, live only by His Word and by His Sacraments. It gives us life and directs our path. It teaches us the right way to go to find good living and to stay living!  When you are faced with a moral decision at work, or at school, hide in Jesus’ Word. There He gives you direction for your life, forgiveness for your sins, protection against the wolves.  When you feel like the world is overwhelming you, the pressure is on, the stress is about to break you, hide behind Jesus, for He leads His people to good pastures. Do not conform to the ways of the world, do not be a sheep that follows the voice of the hireling or the howls of the wolf, but one that only listens to the voice of Jesus.

Living in the wild of this world, facing wolves and dangers untold, is hard. But it is even more difficult when Christ Himself from His Church and acts as if He’s forgotten it. He leaves it oppressed under the cross, subjected to the cruelty of the world, while the enemies of Christ and His Church gloat and rail against it. It is at these times that we are driven by the wolves of the world, abandoned by the hirelings looking only to their selfish needs, to recognize our own sin, our own failures, our own need for the Shepherd. Whatever you have not kept, He has kept. Whatever you have sinned, He has paid for with His blood. Whenever you wander off and find yourself alone, He goes in search of you to bring you back into His flock and rescue you from the wolf of hell.

Christ does not let the sheep be slain by the wolf, but He stands against him, gathers us to Himself, and protects us against the devilish hound even when we don’t feel it, don’t see it, don’t understand it.  For the Word and promise of the Good Shepherd declares, “I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father…” There is no question here. The true knowledge of Christ is that He knows us and we are known to Him. There is a way of knowing Him with the very fibers of our being, it is the intimate union of our soul with Him. This bond with Christ is brought about by Holy Communion. Here, we make the matter of knowing Him in the most intimate and enduring bond. Through the Sacrament, more than in any other way, are we should feel and know that we are sheep of His pasture. For the life that the Good Shepherd that He laid down, He has taken up again, and He lives and reigns and shepherds His sheep throughout eternity. So yes, I just wanna be a sheep, living under the Good Shepherd. For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!

John 20:19-31

Second Sunday of Easter/Quasimodo Geneti

April 23, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Here we are one week from Easter and for many, last Sunday is treated now like a distant memory.  The Easter lilies are dying, the candy has been eaten. The celebration over. We are left with a very important question. What do we do now with a resurrected Jesus? Plain and simple, this risen Jesus first delivers Himself to us through Word and Sacrament, and then takes us and sends us out to deliver the benefits of His cross and resurrection.

The high feast of Easter is more than an occasion for spiritual emotionalism. It’s more than just a spiritual high that wears off after the festivities are over. The celebration of Easter ought to have a lasting effect and influence in the lives of Christians.  We gather together every Sunday morning, not as if it was new or different Sabbath, but because each Sunday is a little Easter.  On Sunday, we begin a new week basking in the glory of Christ crucified and risen from the dead! We give witness to the resurrection of Christ. With Christ, we have risen to a new life. Easter, above everything else, ought to stir up faith to love and service for our neighbor.

In order to build our lives on the grace of Easter, we must first of all stand upon a firm foundation. This foundation is faith in the risen Christ. Faith in Jesus receives the forgiveness won upon the cross, and the victory over death at the resurrection. But this is not just a passive faith that receives what God has revealed as true, but flowing out of God’s grace it is an active faith that governs all the actions of our lives. The virtue of perseverance is needed. We know how fragile and inconsistent the human nature can be. We feel it one minute, and the next we wonder if any of it with worth the hassel. We leave Easter with the joy of knowing our sins are forgiven and desiring to do better, and then we’re right back into our sinful habits. The Lenten season and then Easter is not a time for new year’s faith resolution or redoubled effort to be better. It is the time to look again to Christ, and Christ alone, for our victory over sin. He who gave the Easter gift also preserves it..

Jesus appears to His disciples in the locked upper room on that first Easter with a message of reconciliation. They are scared each time, and rightly so. They fear that the Jews are going to come and kill them, just as they did Jesus.  They fear that all their hopes and the promises of Jesus were just empty words. And now, that Easter evening, He brings them peace and shows them His hands and His side.  He is no ghost, He is not a figment of their imagination. Here is the One who was crucified, died, and buried now standing in front of them in the flesh.

 And then He breathes on them.  This isn’t just any breathe either, this is the breathe of life that spoke creation into being, that brought life to Adam, that spread across a valley of dry bones to raise them up, that bespeaks, delivers, the righteousness of God, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld.”  Jesus brings them peace between God and man by the forgiveness of their sins, and then He equips them with His Spirit to exercise the Office of the Keys, that is the special authority Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.

It is the resurrection of Jesus that propels the apostles forward to declare the forgiveness found in Jesus the risen and exalted Lord.  What a stark contrast that just 50 days after the disciples are hiding out in fear of their own lives because of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they begin to proclaim Christ crucified and raised from the dead for the forgiveness of sins with boldness. Their confidence is based in the fact that God raised Jesus.  Not only did he raise Jesus, but he exalted the risen Lord to His right hand in the Ascension.  

This confidence of the apostles is our confidence as well.  Jesus lives and reigns!  In His resurrection Jesus Christ has defeated death.  He has begun the resurrection of Last Day that will be ours.  He won forgiveness for us and he continues to deliver it to us through his Means of Grace.  Through the same Means of Grace, through God’s Word and the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, He continues to be present with us.  This isn’t just a spiritual presence. Jesus isn’t a ghost. He isn’t a disembodied spirit floating around visiting church after church.  The risen Jesus is actually present in the reading and proclamation of his Word.  He is present when we are baptized into His name.  He is present as he says, “I forgive you all your sins” through the called servant in his Office of the Holy Ministry. And He is uniquely, bodily present in his true body and blood of the Sacrament of the Altar, given and shed for us. In each celebration of the Service of the Sacrament we sing the words of the Sanctus: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead he does … and he will. (Adapted from a blog post from Pr. Mark Surburg).

And when Jesus visits His people, He speaks peace upon His people. He grants a peace that leads to joy.  Faith, peace, and joy are the heritage of the Church, the very life by which we live. We have received this life in order that we may be the channel of life to the world.  The Lord sends His disciples out by divine commission with divine life invested with divine authority. The Church is to represent the living Christ to the world, to serve as His ambassador to declare His terms of peace – nothing less than death to sin and resurrection to new life. The Church has received the Spirit, the Water, and Blood for the life of the world.

And now He sends His Church out to announce this good news, and even more so, to deliver it through the means that He has established. So you ask, “Who can forgive sins, but God alone.”  “It is true that there is no human power or ability or merit or worthiness to forgive any sins, even if someone were as holy as all the apostles and all the angels in heaven… However, here we must have the true distinction… between what people do from their own initiative and on their own unworthiness and that which Christ commands us to do in His name and which He produces through His power… But if the absolution is to be true and powerful, then it must come from this command of Christ, so that it says: ‘I absolve you from your sins not in my name or in some saint’s name, or for the sake of some human merit, but in the name of Christ and by the authority of His command, who has commanded me to tell you that your sins are forgiven.  So it is not I but He Himself (through my mouth) who forgives your sins, and you are obliged to accept that and believe it firmly, not as the word of man, but as if you had heard it from the Lord Christ’s own mouth.’” (LW 77, pp. 135-136)

Faith in Jesus receives the forgiveness won upon the cross, and the victory over death at the resurrection. By the authority the Lord has given his church and by his command I declare you absolved: Your sins are forgiven; in the name of the Father and of the Son T and of the Holy Spirit. God forbid that any of you reject his grace and forgiveness by refusing to repent and believe, and your sins therefore remain unforgiven. May the Lord comfort you with His Holy Absolution, and strengthen you with His Sacraments, that your joy may be full. Peace be with you.

Mark 16:1-8; 1 Cor 15

Jesus Lives

Easter Sunday

April 16, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia! What wonderful words we speak and sing today. It is a song of victory. Easter is the feast of victory by our God. What we celebrate today is the central event throughout all of history, throughout all creation.  It is what everything was heading toward and what everything flows out from. Our life is to be daily celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus is His Victory

For upon the cross, Jesus accomplished what He was sent by the Father to do.  From eternity, the Lamb who was slain, was the plan. God’s will was that His Son would suffer, and suffer for our sake. And then on the third day be raised again for our justification, brining life and immortality to light.

Jesus resurrection proclaims His victory over sin and death.  So where O death is your victory? Death has none, not anymore, not for Jesus. The earth swallowed up Jesus in the grave, yet the Son of God by the victory of His resurrection swallowed up death forever.

In spite of clear predictions on at three occasions (Mark 8:31-32, 9:31; 10:33-34), Jesus disciples did not believe that this could be true. They did not comprehend who this Jesus really was and why He come. The 11 disciples are nowhere to be found while the women make their way to the grave. They go, not in the hope that Jesus is alive, but to finish the burial customs. They fully expected the stone in front of the entrance, and wonder how they will get in to anoint His body.  And what a shock when they arrive! The tomb opened, and a messenger telling them that Christ has risen, He is not there. 

And they don’t know what to do with this! The women are left with an empty tomb. What do they do with an empty tomb?  What do we do with an empty tomb?  To some, that means that Christianity itself is empty, that is lacking. No Jesus, no Christian faith.  But it means just the opposite.  As the cross is the symbol of the sacrifice and death of Jesus, the empty tomb signifies the Resurrection.  No Jesus is the tomb, for Christ is risen! He is victorious.  And what’s more, it’s all for you. We are truly blest in that we are not left at the tomb. The message that the women shared with the Disciples, they also shared with us. A mixture of anxiety and fear and wonderment and news that seems too good to be true.

The resurrection of Jesus is your victory

So what do we with this message, with this empty tomb?  We sang right before the Gospel reading, “Alleluia, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia, alleluia.”  We go to the risen Jesus, for when push to comes to shove, we are all headed to our own tombs. Unless Christ returns first, we are going to die.  In fact, we are already in the process of dying.  You are aging.  You get sick.  You have aches and pains.  And all this bears witness to the fact that you are sinner.  The impact of sin on your life is not merely about the evil thoughts and bad things you do, and failing to do things you should.  Instead, it is also the fact that your very existence is warped and twisted by sin. Because of sin, you have an expiration date.  You just don’t know what it is yet.  You have that expiration date because you are a sinner who sins. As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.”

But O death, where is your victory now? O death, where is your sting? For Jesus, there is none because He is risen. And for you who believe in Him, sin and death has no more victory over you.  The resurrection of Jesus is your victory delivered in the waters of baptism, proclaimed in the absolution, fed through the body and blood of Christ. It is the Life of the world delivered to you. Your mortality dressed in immortality.  Only three days did He lay in the tomb and then raise to life eternal. And so, after your tribulation here, the day of deliverance is appointed also for you.  Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, the good and the bad, those serious about their faith and those who have been lazy, for everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, whether rich or poor, those who had an easy life of those who suffered, to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, eternal life will be given, for free, for the sake of Jesus. They will come out of the grave in their bodies. The Lord will give them that which they did not earn and do not deserve, but has been won by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, and by His victorious resurrection.

But make no mistake.  Where there is no faith in the Lord of life, there is no life. Yes, there will be a resurrection of the living and dead. But for those who do not hear this message, who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is a resurrection to eternal condemnation, to an unending punishment. Without Christ, sin and the devil have their victory over you.

So believe in this message of the angels and the women and of the Church as it speaks the Word of God. Through faith, and faith alone, you share in that victory now, through faith.  It is a victory that runs deeper than just over your death, but also over your life. For the victory of Jesus’ resurrection is not just over death, but over the cause of death: your sin. Now, your sins cannot condemn you. By the blood and wounds of the crucified One and by His resurrection, you have obtained forgiveness no matter how many or how great they might be.  Here is the perfect ransom, the perfect redemption. Death no longer has any power over you. Satan is a defeated foe. He may roar, but he cannot devour. He may accuse your conscious, but Jesus intercedes for His people and bestows His righteousness upon them. Hell cannot terrify, for Christ has rescued you from hell. Jesus lives and so I will live. Since the head has risen, His members cannot remain in death.

Since Jesus lives, you have a faithful and constant friend. He will provide for you while you live, sustain you while you suffer, protect you from your enemies, gladden you in affliction, refresh you in your dying hour, keep you while in the grave, and finally receive you to glory and grant you the crown of eternal life (adapted from Stark’s Prayer Book, pg 90). 

What wonderful news we have. Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Praying in the Morning: Luther’s Morning Prayer

Easter Sunrise/Vigil

April 16, 2017

Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID

“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” So writes the Psalmist in Psalm 118, just a few verses before This is the day when the cornerstone of salvation has been laid because Christ is risen! We awake to this new day in the joy of the resurrection. And so Luther echoes this joy and gladness in his morning prayer. God has kept us through the night. We rise in the morning to greet the risen Savior.  As we meet the rising sun, so we meet the risen Son of God. The darkness of Good Friday gives way the light of Easter. The darkness of death gives way to the Light and the Life of the World.

Death has no power over you, for Christ has overcome death and turned it into but a sweet sleep and made it your departure to your Father in heaven.  Do not fear the grave, for though you may sleep there for a while, you will rise as a child of God. Consider it only a bed in which you sleep, trusting in the Lord to keep you there from all harm and danger until the Day of Resurrection of all flesh.

This is why Luther encourages us to begin each day to make the sign of the cross combined with the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – the holy name of God given to us at our baptism.  It is the name of the living God, the victorious God. He has kept us through another night, resting in the arms of the risen Christ.  And we pray that God would guide us this coming day from sin and every evil. What’s more, that He guide all our doings and life to please Him. Jesus’ resurrection not only frees you from your sin and death, but it enables you to live a new life, a God pleasing life. Put away the deeds of darkness. Quit your sin. Repent of your evil thoughts, words, and deeds. Come out of the tomb. Your life is to be daily celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.

Then go joyfully to your work.  Large stones may seem to block our way, stones of our making or those rolled in the way by others.  We don’t always know how we’re going to get around them or through them. And sometimes we simply end up underneath it, or locked away behind it. But there is no stone, nor obstacle, no threat, that our God does not overcome. Daily we awake by the grace of God, rise to a new life by His power.

St. John Chrysostom, the Golden Tongue, Easter sermon from the late 300s.

Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages! If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward; If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast! And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss. And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too. And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay. For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows. He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor. The deed He honors and the intention He commends. Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord! First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. 

Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hell when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below." Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it was mocked. It was in an uproar, for it was destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive. Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is Risen, and life is liberated! Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!