Category: Sermon Page

Presentation of the Augsburg Confession
Sunday, June 25, 2023

“The Blessing of Confessing the Augsburg Confession” (Psalm 119:46)

Today Lutheran churches around the world are celebrating the 493rd anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession. It was on June 25, 1530, in the city of Augsburg, Germany, that a group of Lutheran princes took a confession of their faith, composed by Luther’s associate Philip Melanchthon, and presented it to Emperor Charles V. This Augsburg Confession summarizes what Lutheran churches believe, teach, and confess, on the basis of Holy Scripture. And what a blessing this confession has proved to be! Not only did it confess the truth in 1530, it has served the church well for almost 500 years, and still today our congregation and our church body are glad to say that it sums up our faith as well. And so our theme this morning: “The Blessing of Confessing the Augsburg Confession.”

To confess the faith is to say the same thing as what God has first said to us. To confess the faith is to declare to one another and to the whole world what we believe and teach on the basis of God’s word. It is to declare the truth against all errors. It is to speak boldly and fearlessly what we know to be true, whether that’s popular or not. Thus to confess the faith can be a daring and even dangerous thing to do.

It is especially daring and dangerous when you confess the faith before those who are very powerful. But your confidence in the Lord compels you to speak, no matter the consequences. As the psalmist says, “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.” The Augsburg confessors put that verse, Psalm 119:46, at the front of their confession. It sums up their attitude. You see, both the power of the emperor and the power of the pope were lined up against the Lutherans. The consequences could be severe. But the conviction of the gospel was stronger than any fear of earthly powers. And so the confessors of Augsburg really did speak truth to power.

Confessing the faith can be dangerous, but it’s also a joyful thing to do. The same psalmist who said, “I will speak of your testimonies before kings,” says in the next verse, “for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.” Yes, it’s a joyful thing to confess the faith. Just think of what we are confessing. Just think of whom we are confessing. We’re saying what God has first said to us, about who he is and what he has done for us. We are confessing Christ, our Savior and Lord.

The Augsburg Confession puts it like this in Article III: “There is one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried. He did this to reconcile the Father to us.” Friends, this is the best good news in the world! This is the gospel, the only thing in the world that will save you! To confess this faith, then, is a joyful thing. “I believe, therefore have I spoken,” the Scripture says. God has filled our hearts with faith in Christ, and our mouths then speak what our hearts are filled with.

Therefore anything that would obscure the saving truth of the gospel is wrong. And when that happens, we must speak out. To remain silent in the face of error is to be unfaithful to God and unloving toward our neighbor. False teaching can endanger people’s salvation. So we confess the truth and refute the error. That’s what faith does. We want to keep the truth of the gospel clear and whole and pure.

And so when certain groups come along and say something different–when people either wittingly or unwittingly espouse errors that undermine the gospel–then we must refute the error and confess the truth. And we do so in every area of doctrine, in all that our Lord has given us to confess. All things, things like Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and so on. Whatever the Lord has given his church to hold on to, we are not to let go of. We’re not at liberty to change or to count as of no importance anything that our Lord has revealed to us.

Take the doctrine of Baptism, for example. To change Baptism from gospel into law, from something God that does for us into something that we do–which is what many churches teach–this could endanger a person’s salvation. People could think that their right standing with God is up to them. “God does his part, but I’ve got to do mine.” Well, that is dangerous thinking. It is not the way of faith.

To deny the truth about the sacraments robs people of the great comfort God wants them to have. So, for example, we gladly confess what Jesus says about his Holy Supper. Augsburg Confession, Article X: “Our churches teach that the body and blood of Christ are truly present and distributed to those who eat the Lord’s Supper. They reject those who teach otherwise.” See, that’s a clear confession: teaching the truth on the one hand and rejecting error on the other. And such a confession is still needed today. For while we Lutherans believe that Christ gives us his true body and blood in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins, many churches around us do not.

Confessing truth against error is still needed in our day. Our culture has slid downhill and now approves what God condemns. For instance, think of all the “Pride Month” celebrations. People are openly proud of what they should be ashamed of, and the rest of us are supposed to go along with it. Our society has become more and more secularized, with the church being increasingly marginalized. Non-denominational churches fail to preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins, and instead substitute entertainment and “five steps to a happier life.” False teachers continue to mislead millions. Oh, there’s plenty of need for confessing the faith in our day!

More than that, there is positive joy in proclaiming the good news of Jesus! We want to share our joy with others. We want our friends, family, and neighbors to know what we know, how people are put right with God. As Article IV of the Augsburg Confession says: “People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. By his death, Christ made satisfaction for our sins. God counts this faith for righteousness in his sight.” Brother and sisters, what good news this is!

So we dare not compromise or give away parts of the faith. Instead, we give glory to God and true gospel comfort to our neighbor by confessing the faith. The Lutheran church is a confessional church. We are not ashamed or afraid to say what our church believes and teaches. Oh, we may be accused of being loveless and rigid and dogmatic. But so be it. We speak the truth and reject error, for it is the truth that sets people free. We confess God’s word in its truth and purity, no matter how popular or unpopular it makes us. It is our duty and delight to confess the true faith.

Fellow confessors of the faith, today we are glad to say with the confessors of Augsburg what the psalmist prayed to the Lord: “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.”

Confessors, princes, duty bound,
To Augsburg bold they came;
Before the king they stood their ground
And were not put to shame.
Their good confession made that day
Proved not to be in vain;
Gird us their sons, Lord, that we may
Still follow in their train.

Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 18, 2023

“The One Man Adam and the One Man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:6-15)

As by one man all mankind fell
And, born in sin, was doomed to hell,
So by one Man, who took our place,
We all were justified by grace.

So we just sang, and so is the message of our Epistle reading today, from Romans chapter 5. As it says in verse 15 of our text: “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”

In our text, Paul has been setting up a contrast, a stark contrast. Through one man and his trespass, death reigned over all of us. Through another “one man” and his obedience, grace abounded for all of us. What a difference! It literally is the difference between life and death, what comes to us through these two men. Thus our theme this morning: “The One Man Adam and the One Man Jesus Christ.”

These are the two men Paul is putting side by side, to make a contrast. They are the one man Adam, and the other one man, Jesus Christ. Adam was a “type of the one who was to come,” Paul writes. The word “type” means that Adam served as a model, a prefigurement, in some respects, of the one to come. But the parallel runs from the negative to the positive, in going from the one man Adam to the one man Jesus Christ. Adam fell to temptation, fell into sin, whereas Jesus did not. Jesus remained faithful. So let’s compare the failure of Adam vs. the faithfulness of Christ.

On the failure of Adam, Paul writes, “Sin came into the world through one man.” Here he’s referring to the fall into sin from Genesis 3. Adam had received a command directly from God not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam did not heed the word that God had spoken to him. He tuned out God’s word, yielded to temptation, and fell into sin.

Jesus is quite the opposite. The word of God was uppermost in his thinking, when he took temptation head on in the wilderness. Remember how Jesus kept answering the devil. He would say: “It is written.” “Again it is written.” “For it is written.” Jesus took his stand on the word of God, never departing from it. By remaining faithful even while fasting, Jesus embodied the Scripture that says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

How about you? Do you ever let temptation–the whisperings of the devil, the opinions of the world, the desires of your flesh–do you let temptation get the better of you? Do you ever tune out the word of God? I guarantee you that you do. For example, in his commandments, God tells you to set aside a day each week to come and hear the preaching of his word, to gladly hear and learn it, and to hold that day sacred, inviolable. But are there weeks when on the Lord’s Day you’d rather do other things than obey God? In his commandments, God tells you not to murder your neighbor, whether in thought, word, or deed. But how often, how bitterly, and how long do you hold a grudge? We tune out God, who tells us to forgive those who trespass against us. You get the picture. We all, each one of us, have inherited that old, Adamic, sinful nature. It’s a family portrait, for all of us in the line of Adam.

Sin characterizes this family, and, as a result, so does death. Paul writes, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Death follows after sin as surely as night follows day. Death is the curse and consequence of Adam’s disobedience. Adam sinned, and it corrupted the whole human race. The judgment for sin thus fell on the whole of humanity. Adam sinned. We all sin. Adam died. We all die. Adam was driven out of the garden and barred from the tree of life. Likewise, death consumes us all. All of mankind got messed up, right from the get-go, when Adam got the heave-ho. “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

You and I follow in the footsteps of our father, Adam. Flesh gives birth to flesh. This tendency to sin is common to all the sons of Adam. The fancy term for this is “original sin.” It is the sinful nature of our origin in Adam. The evidence of this reality is the fact that we all sin and we all die. We’re showing the family trait, more telling than red hair or blue eyes or the distinctive shape of our nose. The family characteristic that we all share alike, every one of us on earth, is that we all sin and we all die.

Look, it’s not going to get any better, if all you are is descended from Adam. Sin and death is your sorry lot, and there’s no escape if that’s all you got. You need to be related to somebody else, someone who can get you out of this mess. And that person is Jesus.

If Adam is the first “one man,” who us into this mess, Jesus is the second “one man,” the one who gets it right and gets us out of this death trap that we fell into. Jesus is the head of a whole new humanity. “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” Here is the “one man” you need to be related to: It’s Jesus Christ. You can sum up his whole life, his whole ministry, his whole saving mission, as perfect obedience to the will of his Father, from start to finish.

Adam wanted to be like God, and so he disobeyed and exalted himself. Jesus Christ, the very Son of God come from heaven, did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead he humbled himself, made himself nothing, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. He did this, the will of his Father, in order to save and redeem mankind from the black hole of sin and death that we had fallen into. And so the cross of Christ is our tree of life. Jesus willingly died in our place, winning our forgiveness and redeeming us from the curse of death. His resurrection proves it.

Fulfilling the promise given in the garden, Jesus is the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent’s head. He is our divine Champion, delivering the whole human race. Jesus heads up a new humanity, to which, by faith, you belong. God’s gift of righteousness, your right standing before him, is given to you freely for Christ’s sake. You are justified, pronounced righteous, being found in Christ. Adam and Eve tried to cover up their shame with fig leaves, a device of their own making. That didn’t work. God clothes us with the robe of Christ’s perfect righteousness, purchased with his blood when he died in our place. His righteousness is the only thing that really does cover our guilt.

“But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.” God’s grace abounds for you, my friends! Much more than the sin of Adam is the gift of righteousness in Christ! Much more than the death we die is the life we live in Christ! Our God is a “much more” God! Do you have sins and trespasses that weigh you down? God’s grace is much more than that! It is abundant grace! Do you have death looming ahead in your future, staring you in the face? Much more is the life–the eternal life–that is yours, in Christ!

There’s an old rhyme that goes, “In Adam’s fall, we sin-ned all.” Well, today I’d like to offer a new couplet: “In Christ our Lord, we’ve been restored.” For from the one man Adam, you and I inherited an old sinful nature that wants to tune out God and do its own thing. And with our sin, we get the curse of death that comes with it. But thank God for the other “one man,” our Savior Jesus Christ! For from him, and by his obedience, we receive the free gift of righteousness and life, life that overcomes death.

You see, it’s a “much more” deal. Oh, sin and death are powerful stuff. But much more is the gift of abundant grace and eternal life that are yours in Christ! “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”

We thank You, Christ, new life is ours,
New light, new hope, new strength, new pow’rs.
This grace our ev’ry way attend
Until we reach our journey’s end.

The Holy Trinity
Sunday, June 4, 2023

“Baptized in the Name: Confidence, Belonging, Relationship, Identity” (Matthew 28:16-20)

Sometime during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension, our Lord Jesus Christ met with his disciples on a mountain in Galilee, and he told them: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

And that is what the church has done for all these many centuries. And that is what has happened to you, every one of you here who has been baptized in the name of the triune God. What does this mean for you? What has God given you in your baptism? Let’s find out now on this Holy Trinity Sunday, under the theme: “Baptized in the Name: Confidence, Belonging, Relationship, Identity.”

“Baptized in the name”: What does this give you? First, it gives you confidence. You can have confidence in your baptism. Why? Because God’s authority stands behind it. The baptism you received was not some quaint custom invented by men. No, this is Holy Baptism, God’s baptism, instituted by Christ himself. He is the one who told us to baptize. Jesus Christ, the Son of God from heaven, the crucified and risen Lord, having completed his saving mission on earth, comes to his apostles and says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” It is on this authority that he commissions his church to baptize. Baptism has been instituted by Christ himself, invested with his full authority.

Baptism is done “in the name of” the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. “In the name of” designates the authority behind an act. For example, when a policeman says, “Stop in the name of the law,” the power of the law stands behind his order to stop. Well, baptism has behind it not law but gospel authority. Baptism says not, “Stop in the name of the law,” but rather, “Go in the name of the gospel.” Go and live free by the power of the gospel! Go, knowing that God has done this good work for you and in you. God’s own name stands behind your baptism, backing it up with his gospel power. In the Large Catechism, Luther writes: “To be baptized in God’s name is to be baptized not by men but by God himself. Therefore, although it is performed by human hands, it is still truly God’s own work.” Thus, God’s authority gives you confidence, knowing that God was doing his own mighty work when he baptized you.

“Baptized in the name”: What does this give you? Second, it gives you a real sense of belonging. Because now you belong to God. He put his claim on you by putting his name on you. His name is the brand you wear. It shows that you are his. God bought you at a price, the price of Christ’s own blood. For Christ my Lord has redeemed me, purchased and won me, that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom. Christ owns you, my friend. He purchased you at a price. In fact, you belong to God three times over. He created you, giving you life and breath. He redeemed you, with the precious blood of Christ. He sanctified you–the Holy Spirit gave you new life and the gift of saving faith. You belong, quite literally, to God. He bought you and put his claim and his name on you.

But this is not an oppressive bondage, this is no awful slavery, this ownership that God has over you. No, this is a most blessed thing, that you belong to God. You have come under God’s protection and provision. His lordship over you is the best thing that could ever happen to you. It sets you free from the slavery to sin and death that we were hopelessly locked into. Now you are free. Now you belong to God. Now you bear his name.

“Baptized in the name”: What does this give you? First, confidence. Second, belonging. Now third, relationship. Because being baptized in the name of the triune God means that now you are in a right relationship with the one true God. Now we know who God is and that we have come into a living, life-giving relationship with him. Beforehand, you and I did not know who God really is. Men by nature have only the vaguest notions of what God must be like. They know that there must be a God. That’s obvious from nature and from conscience. But who is God? What is he like? And who am I in relationship to him? Is God for me or against me? My guilty conscience gives me no peace. Nature does not give me a clear picture. If the sun is shining and the crops are good, then I figure God must like me; he must think I’m pretty good. But if the rain washes out my crops–or if my wife dies, or I lose my job or–pick your misfortune–then God must be against me. Is it because he is a mean God or because I am a bad person? How do I get back on God’s good side? Do I offer sacrifices? Do I try harder? Do I compare myself to people who aren’t as good or as moral as I am? These are the questions that haunt and hound man to the grave, when man has only nature and his own warped conscience to go on.

But God has revealed himself to us clearly in the gospel. Now we know who the true God is. That’s what this “name” business is all about. The “name” of God is his revelation of himself, God making himself known to us. For Christ Jesus, the only Son come from the Father, makes God known to us. Now in Christ we know a God who is with us and for us, no matter what. Christ has revealed the Father to us, his Father, who now in Holy Baptism becomes our Father also.

“Baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We have been baptized into a relationship with the Father–a dear Father who regards us as his own dear children, children of the heavenly Father who hears our prayers and takes care of us, who has an inheritance waiting for us in heaven. Likewise, we are baptized into a relationship with the Son–Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who rose from the grave and ascended into heaven, assuring us of forgiveness, life, and eternal salvation. And we have been baptized into a relationship with the Spirit–the Holy Spirit who brings us to faith in Christ and keeps us in the faith, through the gospel and the sacraments, in the communion of the church. Thus, as the Large Catechism says about being baptized in the name of the triune God: “Where God’s name is, there must also be life and salvation.”

“Baptized in the name”: This gives us confidence and belonging, and it puts us into relationship with the triune God. Now fourth, being baptized in the name gives us a strong sense of identity. And this identity guides and empowers our life every day of our life.

How can you remember and live out your baptized identity from day to day? Well, here’s a way that can help, and you learned it in the Small Catechism, under Daily Prayers. Start each day as a baptized child of God: “In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.”

This is a good way to live out your baptism, to live in and from your baptism. To live each day, consciously, in the name that was put on you in your baptism. By calling on the name of the triune God, we commit ourselves and that day into God’s hands. By invoking that holy name, we remember who we are and whose we are. We are new people in Christ, led by the Holy Spirit. By recalling our baptism, we take to ourselves all the gifts that God has given us with his name: forgiveness, new life, the power to live as God’s people, the sure hope of the resurrection–the resurrection of this body that God has put his name on. By invocation of the name of the triune God, you claim your identity as a baptized child of God. And every time the divine name is placed on you here in the Divine Service–at the Invocation, the Absolution, the Benediction–you can likewise make the sign of the holy cross and remember your baptism.

The bottom line is to regard your baptism as your greatest treasure. Think of it! You have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! The Father, who loves you so much that he sent his Son to be your Savior. The Son, Jesus Christ, who carried out his saving mission and returned to his Father in heaven and from there sent us the Holy Spirit, that we would know who we are and whose we are and what is ours in Christ. In Holy Baptism, we become God’s children, we are washed clean by the saving blood of Christ, and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who works faith and new life in us. The triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all working together for your good!

“Baptized in the name”: What does this give you? Today we have seen that your being baptized in the name gives you confidence, knowing that God’s authority stands behind your baptism. Second, it gives you a real sense of belonging, because God literally owns you. Third, your being baptized in the name puts you into a saving relationship with the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And fourth, your baptism gives you a strong sense of identity for your daily life, knowing who you are whose you are.

Brothers and sisters, listen to what Luther says in the Large Catechism about being baptized in the name of the triune God: “His name is a treasure greater and nobler than heaven and earth.” Friends, this is what it means to be “baptized in the name.” And this is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to you! “Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity. Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mercy to us.”

The Day of Pentecost
Sunday, May 28, 2023

“Rivers of Living Water” (John 7:37-39)

Last weekend Susan and I went to Excelsior Springs, Missouri, to attend the wedding of Pastor and Mrs. Paul Flo. Excelsior Springs got its name and its fame long ago from the springs of water located there–healthful, healing waters, with restorative powers, it was said. Well, it so happened that when we went out there on that Friday, I wasn’t feeling so well. But when we returned on Sunday evening, I came back . . . with a bad case of acute bronchitis. I guess the healing waters of Excelsior Springs didn’t do me much good. By the way, I went to the doctor Monday morning, and now I’m doing much better.

Now while the springs of healing water in western Missouri may not cure what ails you, I know some waters that will. And these healing waters are flowing right here, right now. Because today our Lord Jesus Christ invites you to come to him, and he will give you “Rivers of Living Water.”

Our text is the Holy Gospel for today, John 7:37-39, reading again: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Now the words that Jesus speaks here, there are two different ways to translate them. I’ve given you both ways in your bulletin, and I’ve labeled them A and B. Both options are provided in the ESV and in other translations, as well.

Let’s look first at translation A: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now the way this translation reads, it sounds like the living waters will flow from out of the believer. “Whoever believes in me,” it says, “‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” And you can certainly make a case for that reading, both grammatically and theologically. Grammatically, you can read the Greek text that way, so that the “his” in “his heart” refers to “Whoever believes in me.” And that can make sense theologically, too. For the person who believes in Christ–yes, you could say that the Christian does have rivers of living water flowing out of him. His faith wells up in him and overflows. The living waters of the gospel flow out in an abundance of hope and joy, in the Christian’s life of good works, in the worship of God, and in witness to Christ the Savior. “Whoever believes in me . . . ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Isn’t this like what Jesus told the woman at the well, in John chapter 4? There Jesus spoke of “living water” that would become in the believer “a spring of water welling up.” And that woman then did overflow in joy and excitement. She told her whole village about this man who is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. So there were rivers of living water flowing out from the woman at the well.

Then we have a similar scenario on the Day of Pentecost, which we’re celebrating today, as we heard in Acts chapter 2. Rivers of living water are flowing out in all directions from the heart of Peter and all the believers. Moved by the Spirit, their tongues are telling the mighty works of God. Peter begins preaching the life-giving gospel to the crowd that had gathered, giving them the promise that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” So there were rivers of living water flowing out from the hearts and mouths of the believers on Pentecost.

All this supports the first way to read this text: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ In this translation A, the living waters flow out of the believer.

But then there’s a second way to read the text, which also makes sense both grammatically and theologically. Let’s look at that. It’s translation B, and it reads as follows: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and let him who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

This too is a legitimate way to translate the passage. It’s the alternate translation provided in the ESV and in other Bibles as well. This translation uses the same Greek words; it just changes the punctuation. It breaks up the two sentences at a different point. Literally, it would go like this: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me, and let him drink, the one who believes in me.” Then the second sentence would be: “As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Notice what this does. In this translation, the first sentence has two parts that say the same thing in parallel fashion. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me” is the first half of the sentence. And the second half restates the thought: “and let him drink, the one who believes in me.” This type of parallel construction is very common, biblically. And here it would describe faith as a thirsty person coming to Jesus and believing, by drinking the thirst-quenching water that Jesus gives. That makes a lot of sense. This sentence then is Jesus’ invitation in two parallel parts, for thirsty people to come to him and to have their thirst quenched by trusting in him.

And so that changes where the second sentence begins. Now the second sentence would read: “As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” And this changes the one from whom the rivers of living water flow. In translation A, they flow out of the believer. Here in translation B, the rivers of living water flow out from Jesus. Thirsty people are invited to come to Jesus and drink, because he is the source of that living water. “Out of his heart,” that is, out of Jesus’ heart, “will flow rivers of living water.”

My friends, whichever way we translate the passage, this much is true: Jesus is the source of the living water. He invites us to come to him and to drink and have our thirst quenched. How about you? Are you thirsty? Do you feel the dryness in your soul that comes from sin and a guilty conscience? Are you troubled by your sins? Then come to Jesus and drink. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Yes, Jesus is the source of the living water. That’s also what he told the woman at the well: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Likewise, on the Day of Pentecost. The living water comes from Jesus. Having been crucified and then raised from the dead, having ascended into heaven and now sitting at the right hand of the Father, the exalted Lord Jesus Christ pours out the Spirit on his church. He provides the water. He provides the life.

Now one thing we haven’t discussed yet. Our text says, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up,” etc. So which feast was this? There were three major festivals in the Hebrew calendar, Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles. The feast mentioned in our text was the Feast of Tabernacles. Tabernacles commemorated how the Lord had miraculously provided for Israel during their wilderness wanderings. And on the last day of the festival, as it was observed at Jesus’ time, there was a special water ceremony to remember how the Lord had supplied the Israelites with water in the wilderness. And how had that taken place? It happened when the Lord God directed Moses to strike a rock with his rod, and out flowed fresh water in the desert. A miraculous, divine, life-saving supply.

So it is with Jesus. Jesus was taken to Golgotha, Calvary, the Place of the Skull, a place of death. There he was crucified. There the Lord of life, the Son of God sent from heaven, died to atone for the sins of the world, your sins and mine. And when Jesus died, a soldier came and struck him with a “rod,” so to speak–a spear, in Jesus’ side–and out flowed a sudden rush of blood and water. Jesus himself is the Rock of Ages, from whose pierced side flow the rivers of living water. Because he died, we live. By his blood, our sins are forgiven. And by the living water of the Spirit, which Jesus gives, we receive the gift of faith. By Christ’s death and resurrection, you and I are saved from death for eternal life.

And by our ascended Lord pouring out the Spirit on his church, on us Christians, now the rivers of living water flow out from us to others: in works of mercy, in words of witness, in songs of worship and praise. The source of the living water is Jesus himself. The flow goes from him to us, and then from us to others.

“Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Out of whose heart? Out of Jesus’ heart and into us. Then out from our heart, toward God in faith and worship, and toward our neighbor in fervent love and witness. “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Either way you read this passage, we come out at the same place. The rivers of living water flow out to us from Jesus and then out through us to others. So go with the flow!

Guest Pastor: The Rev. Rob Riebau

First Reading: Acts 1:12-26

Epistle: 1 Peter 4:12-19; 5:6-11

Holy Gospel: John 17:1-11