Category: Sermon Page

Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 26, 2022

“Freedom, Flesh, and Fruit” (Galatians 5:1, 13-25)

Our text today is the Epistle from Galatians chapter 5. In this text, St. Paul takes up three points that very definitely affect you and the way you live. And they are “Freedom, Flesh, and Fruit”: the freedom we have in Christ; the works of the flesh that we are to put behind us; and the beautiful fruit that the Spirit will produce in our lives. So let’s go.

Freedom is a wonderful thing. It’s a relief to not be shackled down by restrictive oppression. However, freedom can be abused. Freedom can be used as an excuse or license for wrong behavior. So the question is: What are we using our freedom for? That’s the question St. Paul takes up here in Galatians. What are we using our freedom for? And what Paul tells the Galatians–and us–is that, yes, we are free in Christ, with a true spiritual freedom. But that freedom is not meant to be used as a license for immorality or any other sin. Rather, we have been set free to live differently from what our sinful flesh would have us do, and instead, to be led by the Holy Spirit.

In the earlier part of Galatians, St. Paul has definitely emphasized the freedom that we have in Christ. No longer are we slaves under the law, bound and chained to keeping the law’s demands perfectly in order to be saved. No longer do we stand condemned and doomed by the law’s accusations. No, Christ Jesus has set us free from that slavery and that guilt.

So the freedom we have in Christ is essential and foundational. Don’t let anyone put you under the yoke of slavery again. As Paul writes: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

You see, there were these Judaizers going around, doing just that. They were trying to get the Galatians to think that, in addition to faith in Christ, now you also had to keep the law’s demands in order to be saved. The so-called circumcision party was going around trying to convince the churches that Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, had to keep the whole law of Moses, or else they weren’t really up to snuff. Circumcision, the dietary laws, the Sabbath laws–all those laws that were in effect for Old Testament Israel were still in effect and necessary for Christians to keep. That’s what Paul’s opponents were saying, and they were having some success in deceiving the Galatians into falling for that trap.

But Paul says, No! If you go back to thinking that you are saved by works of the law, then you have missed the whole point about Christ’s coming. And you will only be condemning yourself if you want to be judged by how well you keep the law, because you will always fall short on that test.

Do you get that? Do you realize that you have broken God’s law, the Ten Commandments, in all sorts of ways–in the things you have done wrong and in the things you have failed to do right? You are a sinner. You don’t love God well enough. You don’t love people well enough. The law isn’t going to save you.

What the law can do is to show you that you have not kept it. And you need to know that. Otherwise, you would have no interest in hearing about a Savior. You would think you can make it on your own. You’d think you’re good enough on your own. And if you believe that, you would be lost forever. But God loved you enough to let you look into the mirror of his law and see yourself there as a sinner in need of a Savior. The law tells you that you need help from outside yourself. This is necessary to know, so that your ears are open when the gospel tells you that God has sent a Savior to deliver you from your sins.

And that Savior is Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, sent from God, “born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law,” as we heard last week. Christ sets you free by virtue of his holy life, fulfilling the law in your stead. He sets you free by his sacrificial death, his holy blood shed on your behalf. He sets you free by the power of his resurrection, so that now, baptized into Christ, you are God’s own child, sharing in the everlasting life of Christ. Friends, you are free and forgiven, redeemed and righteous, and heirs of heaven, all because of your Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Don’t let anyone ever take that freedom away from you. Don’t look to yourself or your own performance for assurance on how you stand with God. By that scale, you will never measure up. And if you think you do, you are only deceiving yourself. Stand fast, stand firm, in the freedom that Christ has won for you.

Yes, if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. But at the same time, Paul says, don’t use your freedom for the wrong purpose. “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” Having avoided the ditch on one side of the road–the ditch of falling into the slavery of the law–now Paul adds: Don’t fall in the ditch on the other side. You are free and forgiven, but don’t use that freedom as an excuse for indulging your sinful flesh. And Paul lists a whole laundry list of works of the flesh, and dirty laundry it is: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.”

Indulging the works of the flesh: You know how it goes, don’t you? We think: “Well, God is all about forgiveness. I know I’m forgiven. So in that case, I’ll go ahead and do things that I want to do, even though I know they’re wrong. But I’ll block that out of my mind, because God will forgive me anyway.” How many times have you let those thoughts go on in your head to rationalize doing what you know to be wrong? It’s a tired tape loop.

So we avoid the ditch of legalism and fall into the ditch of licentiousness. The trick is to walk down the middle of the road and not fall into either ditch. And this is where the Spirit will lead you. The Holy Spirit will lead you on the path of righteousness, so that you walk in step with the Spirit, in the freedom you have in Christ. Neither legalism nor license is the way of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, given you in your baptism, will strengthen your faith through Word and Sacrament and lead you in the right direction

And the Spirit will produce in you the power to bear good and healthy fruit that pleases God. When you bear the fruit of faith in your life, you are saying no to the pull of the flesh. These two things, the leading of the Spirit and the pull of the flesh, go in opposite directions. The sinful flesh, which still clings to you, is essentially selfish. It is only interested in other people insofar as what they can do for you. The fruit of the Spirit is essentially to love, to love God and to love your neighbor. This is what the Spirit will work in your life, work in your heart, to produce the good works that you do.

In contrast to the works of the flesh, Paul now lists the fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Notice, it’s the fruit of the Spirit–“fruit,” a collective singular. Because it’s not like the Spirit will produce just one or two of these things in you. Instead, it’s the whole thing, all the fruit coming up together. The Holy Spirit is working all these beautiful, excellent fruit in your life, in your character. It’s what he does.

Can you see the fruit of the Spirit maturing in your life? Or do you only see the works of the flesh? Then confess your sins, receive God’s forgiveness, and ask for God’s help. He will give it to you. God is committed to you. He baptized you, didn’t he? Christ died for you, didn’t he? The Holy Spirit will keep you in the faith, won’t he? Yes, to all of these. God keeps his promises. Stay connected to Christ, and you will bear much fruit.

This fruit is not just for display, like a bowl of wax fruit that looks good in a still life. No, this fruit is alive and active, producing real results in real life. The fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, etc.–will show up in how you live toward others. You don’t need your good works–Christ has already won your salvation by his good works. You don’t need your good works, but your neighbor does. And God uses you to be his channel of blessing to those around you. God extends his love to people quite often, quite usually, through other people. People just like you. You have been blessed to be a blessing.

When we live according to the flesh, we only seek to satisfy our own desires, and we’re not much good to others. We get into fights and conflicts, because we’re always seeking after self. But when the Holy Spirit leads us in the way of love, then we are fruitful and helpful to others. That’s exactly how God intends us to be: loving and serving, with a joyful heart, from a free and willing spirit. Which the Holy Spirit gives us.

Now if I were to go out to an orchard and tell the fruit trees, “Trees, I want you to bear peaches and cherries and apples and all sorts of delicious fruit,” guess what those trees are going to say? They’ll say: “Great! That’s what we want to do anyway. That’s what we’re designed to do. It’s in our nature as fruit trees to bear fruit.” Well, dear Christians, it’s in your nature–your new nature in Christ–to bear the fruit of the Spirit. God has arranged it so that you will produce beautiful fruit in your life and, through you, for others.

Freedom, flesh, and fruit. Our message today is this: You have wonderful freedom in Christ. Christ has set you free from the crushing burden of trying to keep the law in order to win your salvation. Only, now that you are free, don’t use that freedom as an excuse to indulge your sinful flesh. Instead, let the Holy Spirit guide you and strengthen you through the means of grace, and you will produce beautiful fruit in your life of love and good works.

Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 19, 2022

“Adopted as Sons” (Galatians 3:23 – 4:7)

Today is Father’s Day. Some of us here have a father we can honor and thank today. Some of us, though–our fathers are long gone. In my case, for instance, my father, LeRoy Henrickson, was born 103 years ago this past Friday. But he died when I was just a baby, so I only had one Father’s Day with him. I don’t know what it’s like to have a father you grow up with and have still around when you’re an adult, but I bet it’s pretty cool.

Whatever your situation is, whether you still have a dad to spend time with or not, today I want to assure you that you do have a Father to honor and thank and spend time with today and every day, really. And that, of course, is your heavenly Father. Our earthly fathers, fallible sinners though they are–nevertheless, our earthly fathers are to model and be a picture of the warmth and care we receive from our dear Father in heaven.

And so, yes, we all are being embraced today by the Father we all have in common. You and I are his dearly beloved children. We are his sons, in fact–all of us are, whether we are male or female. And because we are sons, we are also heirs, in line for an inheritance. We are sons and therefore heirs, because of God’s one and only Son, Jesus Christ. My fellow baptized believers in Christ, we all have been “Adopted as Sons.”

Our text for this day is the Epistle from Galatians 3 and 4. There St. Paul tells us that we have been adopted as sons, which in turn makes us heirs. Sons and heirs. That is quite different from what we were before. Before, we were slaves and outsiders, not sons and heirs. But all that has changed. What happened? Let’s find out.

Our text begins in Galatians 3, where Paul writes: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” Captive, imprisoned–not good! That was our status under the law. Under God’s law, you and I were condemned, convicted, captive. Stuck in prison, sentenced to death, no way out. The law says: “Do this, and you will live. Fail to do it, fail to keep God’s law, break it at any point, and you will die.” That was our sad condition as sinners.

Paul says: “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” The law was our “guardian.” The Greek word here is “paidagogos.” Literally it means “one who leads or guides a child.” In the ancient Greco-Roman world, a rich man would assign one of his slaves to serve as the paidagogue for his son. The slave would be the boy’s guardian, his escort, to make sure he got to school safely and didn’t run off on his own. The paidagogue, though a slave himself, was allowed a certain degree of discipline over the boy, even though the son had a higher rank than the slave.

So the law acted as our paidagogue, to make sure we got to where we needed to go. It exercised a degree of discipline over us, keeping our behavior within certain bounds and teaching us the difference between right and wrong. But the goal was not to leave us with the paidagogue. The goal was not to leave us under the law. The goal is to get us to Christ. And the law has a part to play in that. The law shows us our need. By exercising discipline over us and exposing our lack of righteousness, the law helps to direct us to where we need to go, which is to Christ. The law cannot save us, but Christ can, and he does. You and I need to know our need for a Savior, and the law serves that purpose as our paidagogue.

But now that Christ has come, the law has done its job of showing us our need for him. Now when we hear the good news that Christ has fulfilled the law for us, we are justified by faith. We are declared righteous before God for Christ’s sake, through faith in him.

“But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” With the coming of the gospel of salvation through faith in Christ, we are no longer under the guardianship of the law. No longer do we need the supervision of a paidagogue, to be led by compulsion and restricted in our freedom. Now we are treated as sons, sons of God, with all the freedom that comes with that. And as I said, when God’s Word here calls us “sons,” that in no way excludes women. Rather, it’s simply a way to emphasize the inheritance we are in line for as heirs.

“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” How so? What has happened to put us into that status? Paul tells us: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” You and I were baptized, baptized into Christ. We were united to our Savior in the waters of Holy Baptism. Something great and magnificent happened in your baptism. You were clothed with Christ. His perfect righteousness is the white garment that covers all your sin. This robe of Christ’s righteousness is your daily apparel as a baptized child of God. You share in Christ’s standing as God’s beloved Son. That’s what the Father said at Jesus’ baptism, wasn’t it? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Well, now that you are united with Christ in your baptism, God says the same thing about you. You are God’s beloved child.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It doesn’t matter your background, your ancestry, or your status in the world. Whether or not you are marginalized in society, you are not marginalized in God’s kingdom. We all have equal standing before God. We all are united in Christ and his church. Our common baptism, our common faith, bind us together as one.

“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” “Abraham’s offspring?” What does that mean? Well, long ago God made a covenant with Abraham, a covenant of blessing. God made a promise. He committed himself to Abraham and his descendants to bless them. And now, in Christ, the ultimate offspring of Abraham, we too come into the blessing, because we have been joined to Christ.

And that makes us heirs. We are heirs, receiving as our inheritance all the blessings God has promised. We receive membership in the kingdom of God. We have God’s perpetual protection. God blesses us with every blessing in Christ, and he guards and protects us from all evil. Christ will lead us into the Promised Land of heaven, to inherit eternal life. All this is our inheritance, brothers and sisters, and we’re only scratching the surface.

Continuing in Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” At just the right time in history, from God’s perspective, God sent his eternal Son into the world, in human flesh. “Born of woman, born under the law”: Born of the virgin Mary, Jesus was born a Jew, and he kept the law of Moses perfectly, even from infancy. Circumcised on the eighth day, presented in the temple, Jesus fulfilled the law, the whole thing–the ceremonial law of Israel and the moral law of the Ten Commandments. Jesus did everything the law requires. He loved God with his whole heart. He loved his neighbor as himself. Everything we fall short at, Jesus fulfilled.

Jesus then took the punishment the law requires, even though he didn’t deserve it. We did, but he took it, in our place. On the cross, Christ suffered death under God’s judgment. Now that judgment is lifted from you. Jesus took it away. Therefore, you are forgiven. Your sin is not held against you. God sent his Son “to redeem those who were under the law.” That’s us. You and I are redeemed, set free from what stood against us.

To what end? “So that we might receive adoption as sons.” God has brought us into his family. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” “Abba” is the Aramaic equivalent of a little child saying “Papa” or “Daddy.” That’s how warm and personal our relationship with God is now. As his children we get to call God “Abba.” We have intimate access to call on God as our dear Father. Jesus even teaches us to pray God as “Our Father.” Jesus teaches us to trust in our Father, who cares for his children more than he cares for the flowers of the field or the birds of the air. What a joy it is to know that we are children of the heavenly Father!

Paul concludes: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” Sons and heirs, that’s who we are. No longer slaves or outsiders, now we are members of God’s family. We have a bundle full of promises and blessings. They are all ours in Christ, and it will take an eternity to enjoy them.

All because we have been adopted as sons. I mentioned earlier that today is Father’s Day, and that my father, LeRoy Henrickson, was born 103 years ago. Only, he wasn’t LeRoy Henrickson when he was born. He had some other name, and he was put up for adoption at an orphanage in Chicago. Well, a Swedish immigrant couple, Charles and Alma Henrickson, who were childless, adopted this baby boy as their son. They gave him his name, LeRoy Walfred Henrickson. They gave him a home. They gave him warmth and love and a family to belong to. They had him baptized, and brought him up in the church.

And because they had adopted him as their son, when I was born, I got the name of my grandfather, Charles Henrickson. I was baptized and brought into the church. And when my father died, when I was just a baby, I had my grandparents right next door to help raise me and take care of me. All because my dad had been adopted as a son.

Now multiply that by ten bazillion, and you’re beginning to get at the incredible blessings we have now and will yet inherit, because God has made us his sons through his Son Jesus Christ. Fellow baptized believers in Christ, members of God’s family, we all have been “Adopted as Sons.”

The Holy Trinity
Sunday, June 12, 2022

“This Is the Catholic Faith” (Athanasian Creed)

Did you know that we Lutherans are catholic? We are! In fact, you just said so. You did, just now when we all confessed the Athanasian Creed. Don’t worry. I’ll explain. And so our theme on this Holy Trinity Sunday: “This Is the Catholic Faith.”

Yes, it’s Trinity Sunday, that one Sunday of the year when we haul out that big, long creed with the funny name and say it in church. But at least I let you sit down for this one! This creed is called the Athanasian Creed. It’s named after the great church father from the fourth century, St. Athanasius. He didn’t write it, but it represents his teaching as the leading confessor of the faith during a time of great controversy. That crisis concerned the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and that’s why we confess it on this day. By the way, we speak the Athanasian Creed out loud only one Sunday of the year, but we believe, teach, and confess it every day of the year. It is one of the three great, historic, ecumenical creeds–along with the Apostles’ and Nicene–held by all of Christendom around the world.

Let’s start with a little background on this St. Athanasius fellow. He lived during the fourth century–that’s the 300s–in Alexandria, Egypt, on the coast of north Africa. When Athanasius was a young man, there was a man named Arius, who was teaching some things about Christ that were not true–in fact, so not true that they would undermine the whole Christian faith. Arius taught about Christ that, quote, “there was a time when he was not.” That was Arius’s slogan. If you were a follower of Arius, you would have had the bumper sticker on your chariot: “Christ: There was a time when he was not.” What Arius meant by that was that Christ, the Son of God, was not truly divine in the way that God the Father is divine. No. God’s Son was a created being. “There was a time when he was not.”

And Arius gained a lot of followers. He could cherry-pick some Bible verses out of context that seemed to support his position–for instance, where Jesus says, “The Father is greater than I,” and things like that. But if you take away Jesus’ divinity from his person, the whole Christian faith falls apart. For only one who is true God could rescue us from our sins, conquer death for us, and give us eternal life. Only the precious, holy blood of God’s own Son is strong enough and powerful enough to atone for the sins of the whole world and give us perfect forgiveness and righteousness–which is what Jesus Christ, true God and true man, has done for us.

Well, Arius’s false teachings were gaining traction, but people were recognizing how destructive this heresy was. So a council of the whole church was called at Nicaea in the year 325 to deal with this issue. The result was the Nicene Creed, which confesses the truth about Christ, over against Arius’s heresy. That’s why you have phrases in the Nicene Creed like, ‘God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom”–that is, by Christ–“all things were made.” All those phrases were included to teach the true divinity of Christ.

Young Deacon Athanasius was at the Council of Nicaea, and he strongly supported this confession of the true faith against the Arian heresy. Afterward, Athanasius became the Bishop of Alexandria. But it was a long and tough battle. Athanasius suffered much in contending for the truth. Thank God, though, the truth of God’s Word prevailed.

Heresies that would undermine the person of Christ and the reality of the Holy Trinity have always been a threat to the church. They come in different forms, different packages. For instance, today we have the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses spreading their lies and denying the truth about Christ and the triune God. And so it was, after the time of Athanasius, other heretical teachings about the Trinity and the person of Christ were going around. And this is how the Athanasian Creed came into being. This creed goes into the most depth and detail to make absolutely clear the truth that we teach and the errors that we reject.

Confessing the true faith–this is what the Athanasian Creed does. And this is where the term “the catholic faith” comes in. Did you notice that as we read the creed? The phrase occurs several times. Right off the bat: “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith.” Then, “And the catholic faith is this.” A little later, “the catholic religion.” And then at the end, “This is the catholic faith.” Did that make you jump a little bit? It shouldn’t. “Catholic,” in this sense, is a good word. It does not refer to the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Rome, led by the pope. No, “the catholic faith,” in the sense that we say it in the creed, simply means the true faith, the orthodox faith, that is, the right-teaching faith. The word “catholic” literally means, “according to the whole”: in other words, that which has been held in common by the church at all times and in all places.

And so we Lutherans are catholic Christians! Don’t be afraid of that word; it’s a good one! We hold the catholic faith. We haven’t come up with anything strange or new. We confess the Christian faith as it has always been held since the beginning of the church. It’s biblical, it’s Christian, it’s historic. This is the catholic faith.

And what is essential to the catholic faith is the nature of the one true God as triune: One God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is who God is. There is no other. This is the only God who can save you–and he does! The Father, out of his great love for us sinners, sent his only Son into the world to do precisely that–to save us. Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, lived, died, and rose again to accomplish our salvation. And the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, delivers the goods to us, through the gospel means of Word and Sacrament, so that we believe in Christ and receive his gifts of forgiveness, life, and everlasting salvation. This is the catholic faith.

Now besides that word “catholic,” there may have been another part of the Athanasian Creed that got your attention and raised an eyebrow. It comes near the end, where it says about Christ: “At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire.”

Now that may sound strange to your Lutheran ears. “Is that saying that we earn our way into heaven by our good deeds? That’s not what I was taught!” No, that’s not what you were taught, and that’s not what the creed is saying. It’s not saying that you earn eternal life by your works. Rather, it’s saying that your good works will be cited as evidence that you had a living faith in Christ. And it is Christ alone, his good works, that will save you.

What the Athanasian Creed is saying here is the same as what the Bible teaches. In fact, the creed is even quoting Jesus himself! In John chapter 5, Jesus says that when he comes again, the dead will rise, “those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” Likewise, in Matthew 25, Jesus says that at the final judgment your good works will be cited–“I was hungry and you fed me,” etc.–your works will be brought forth as examples to show that you had a living faith in Christ.

And dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is who you are! For in your baptism, God has gifted you with the Holy Spirit, through whom you are a new person in Christ! You do have a living faith in your Savior, nurtured by your regular use of Word and Sacrament. You do live a life of love and good works. Your faith shows through in your life. Thank God for that! And you can rest secure with complete confidence that you will enter into eternal life, not because of your scorecard, but because of the merits of Christ Jesus your Savior!

So these two things in the Athanasian Creed– the word “catholic” and this part about “those who have done good”–these are nothing to be scared of. On the contrary, these are things to rejoice in! “Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity. Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mercy to us.”

Dear friends, today on this Feast of the Holy Trinity, “we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.” The Holy Trinity–one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–this is the only God there is. And thank God this is so, because this is the God who has made himself known to us through his Word. This is the God who saves us. And this is the God we gladly confess in the three ecumenical creeds, the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. My fellow Lutherans, this is the catholic faith!

The Day of Pentecost
Sunday, June 5, 2022

“The Centrality of Baptism: On Pentecost and in Your Life” (Acts 2:1-42)

Today is the Day of Pentecost, one of the three great festivals of the Christian church year, along with Christmas and Easter. This festival commemorates the day of Pentecost that we read about in Acts chapter 2. And what happened that day–the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Peter’s preaching of Christ crucified and risen and repentance and forgiveness in his name–what did that result in? The baptism of 3,000 souls that day. And we even see what happened in the life of the newly baptized in the days that followed: They continued steadfastly in the life of the church.

And so it is for us on this Pentecost day. Today we are gathered in the name of Christ as his baptized people. The Holy Spirit is at work in our midst, working repentance and faith in our hearts, delivering the goods Christ won for us on the cross–all that and more. Then there is the carryover effect of baptism into every day of our lives: dying to sin, rising to newness of life, and having the sure hope of the resurrection. And so our theme this morning: “The Centrality of Baptism: On Pentecost and in Your Life.”

First, let’s see what happened on the Pentecost we read about in our text. “When the day of Pentecost arrived,” Acts 2 begins. Pentecost was a Jewish festival. In the Old Testament, it’s called the Feast of Weeks, since it falls seven weeks after Passover, thus on the fiftieth day, and the word “Pentecost” simply means “fiftieth.” Pentecost was one of the three pilgrimage festivals of Israel, when all the Jews were supposed to travel to Jerusalem and worship at the temple. That’s why you have all those thousands of Jews in Jerusalem in Acts 2, having traveled there from all over the Mediterranean world where they had been dispersed.

This particular Pentecost was seven weeks after Jesus had been crucified in Jerusalem at Passover time. But Jesus arose, of course, and over forty days he appeared to his apostles, before he ascended into heaven. That was ten days ago, and Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem until he sends them the Holy Spirit to empower their witness. Which is what they’re doing when we pick the story up in Acts 2: They’re waiting in Jerusalem. Then the ascended Lord Jesus sends them the promised Holy Spirit, and they commence to witnessing about Jesus. They’ve got a ready-made crowd there, and Peter gets up to speak.

Peter preaches Christ to the people: This Jesus, whom you rejected and crucified just a few weeks back–this Jesus, God raised from the dead, and of this fact, we all are witnesses. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Now this same Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God. “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Well, this is a powerful message of repentance! The people are cut to the heart. “We messed up so bad,” they think. “Is there any hope for us?” “Brothers, what shall we do?” they ask the apostles. “Yes, there is hope,” Peter says. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

The people are convicted of their sin, and Peter preaches the good news of forgiveness to them. And notice where he directs them: to baptism. In baptism, they will receive the forgiveness of sins. In baptism, they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In baptism, they will be saved by God from the judgment that is coming on this world.

And so they are baptized–three thousand of them on that day. But notice, that’s not the end of the story. That’s just the beginning. For all those newly baptized are brought into the life of the church: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.” Not just on a surface level. No, it was a deep dive. “They devoted themselves,” it says. And to what? To “the apostles’ teaching”: They wanted to grow deeper in their faith. To “the fellowship”: They committed themselves to their congregation and their fellow church members, sharing life together and caring for one another, in very practical ways. They devoted themselves to “the breaking of the bread”: They communed regularly, partaking of the Lord’s body and blood. And “the prayers”: They praised God, and they asked for his help. They attended the regular liturgical services of Word and Sacrament. This was their life as the baptized people of God. This was the ongoing, continuing, carryover effect of baptism in their lives.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is the same for us today. What happened on the day of Pentecost back then continues to happen in our day. We still need to hear the message of repentance, for we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We still need to hear the word of the gospel, for we all need Jesus Christ. He is still the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord and Savior. He is your Lord! He is your Savior! You have the forgiveness of your sins in his name!

Pentecost keeps happening! The Holy Spirit continues to work in and through the church’s ministry, bringing people to faith and keeping them in the faith through the means of grace. The Holy Spirit is doing that for you right now, strengthening you in faith and love through the gospel means of Word and Sacrament. God continues to baptize souls, bringing them into the church. We are God’s baptized people.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ your Savior? This is evidence that God has given you the gift of the Holy Spirit, in Holy Baptism. As you learned in the Catechism: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” Your ongoing faith in Christ–in spite of all that would pull you away from Christ, such as the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh–your faith in Christ is a miracle worked by the Holy Spirit, given you in your baptism and nurtured in you as you continue steadfast in the means of grace.

Pentecost keeps happening! You have opportunities right now to devote yourself to the apostles’ teaching, as you come here regularly for the preaching and teaching of God’s Word in sermons and Bible classes. You are part of this fellowship, our congregation, where brothers and sisters care for one another, where we share our life together. Here you can participate every week in the breaking of the bread, the Lord’s Supper, refreshing you and strengthening you in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another. And we devote ourselves to the prayers: We pray for one another, for our country and world, for all those in need, and we praise God for his mercies, which are new every morning. And in our daily prayers, we continue this throughout the week.

We do all this as God’s baptized people. God has given us his Holy Spirit, and the Spirit changes and transforms our lives. This is what I’m talking about when I speak of the centrality of baptism in your life. You live each new day as God’s baptized person and as part of God’s baptized people, the church. This is your identity. This is your life. As Luther used to say: “I am baptized.” Not “I was baptized way back when, and that has no relevance for my life today.” Not that at all. But rather: “I am baptized. I am a baptized person in Christ, every hour of the day, every day of my life. This is who I am, and I thank God for it!”

The centrality of baptism, on Pentecost and in your daily life. Notice how I emphasize this reality even visually. I always lead Confession and Absolution from the baptismal font, showing that we all are baptized in the name of the triune God and that forgiveness in his name flows from this font out to you. And notice the placement of the font: right in the middle of the aisle, so that you pass by the font in order to approach the altar for Holy Communion. This is how we have access to God, as Christ’s baptized people.

The centrality of baptism in our lives. In the Large Catechism, Luther sums it up like this: “In this way one sees what a great, excellent thing Baptism is. It delivers us from the devil’s jaws and makes us God’s own. It suppresses and takes away sin and then daily strengthens the new man. It is working and always continues working until we pass from this estate of misery to eternal glory. For this reason let everyone value his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly.”

Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 29, 2022

“Paradise Restored” (Revelation 22:1-6, 12-20)

Paradise lost. Paradise restored. That’s the story of the Bible, from cover to cover. In fact, the Bible literally has bookends, at front and back, telling that story. As we will now see. Thus our theme this morning: “Paradise Restored.”

The last couple of weeks we’ve been hearing about the new Jerusalem to come, in Revelation 21. Today we continue in Revelation 22, the last chapter both of the Book of Revelation and of the whole Bible. Our text begins: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.”

“The river of the water of life.” “The tree of life.” All kinds of fruitfulness. Does this remind you of anything? It does me. This description of the new Jerusalem as a garden-like paradise, here at the end of the Bible, sounds a lot like the paradise we read about in the beginning of the Bible, that is, the Garden of Eden. For in the opening chapters of Genesis we get a garden, a river, a tree of life, and abundant fruit. There we read: “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. . . . A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. . . .”

That garden was beautiful and verdant and lush with vegetation, to be sure. The whole thing was very good. But the best thing about it was the community that existed, the communion between God and man–and, shortly thereafter, with woman, too. That’s what really made it a paradise: not just the glories of God’s creation, unblemished, but also the harmony of God with people, unbroken. When we talk about the river and the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, we’re talking about life the way our Creator meant it to be. That paradise was designed for us human creatures to live surrounded by God’s abundant blessing. We were designed by God to live with him and with one another in peace and perfect fellowship forever. That was the Master’s plan.

But of course, our first parents messed that all up by their sin and rebellion against the Creator. And we, their children follow in their footsteps. Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, barred from access to the tree of life. Paradise was lost. Death entered the picture. Disharmony marred the landscape. Broken relationships became all too commonplace. Distrust of God and his goodness became our sad, inherited trait as human beings. All the damage that follows when sin enters the picture became all too familiar: Gardens turned to wilderness. City life turned to urban squalor. People turned against one another. People turned away from God.

And you and I are right there, in the midst of it, responsible for our own part, each one of us, in this whole miserable mess. How often have we repeated the sins of our fathers? We fail to listen to God. We block out his voice. We want to be our own god, making up our own rules to rationalize our behavior. We go our own way, and try to defend it. We hurt our brothers and sisters, serving self instead of others. That is our common human lot, isn’t it? That is the original sin that has been passed down from generation to generation. And it is your own poor miserable sin, is it not? Therefore, each one of us has been driven out of the garden. Each one of us has been infected by the disease of sin and death. We were headed to a grave, not a garden. We were headed to hell, not to life in the kingdom of heaven. Paradise lost.

But that all changed when God sent his only Son into the world: Jesus Christ, the new Adam, the second Adam, the one who gets it right. Adam and Eve gave in to the devil in the garden. Jesus fought the devil in the wilderness, and won. Jesus went to a garden, but it was the Garden of Gethsemane, where he agonized in prayer and was betrayed and arrested. Jesus went to a tree, but it was the tree of the cross, outside the city walls, where he was lifted up as the sacrifice for all sinners. Christ’s tree of death becomes our tree of life. From out of his side, pierced by the soldier’s spear–from the side of Christ flows his life-giving blood, and living water, too.

In the tree of the cross we find our healing. The forgiveness of sins now. The promise of perfect healing in the age to come. In the new Jerusalem, we will drink from the water of life and eat fruit from the tree of life, which will yield its fruit twelve months a year. The leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations.

“No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” This is the best part of the paradise to come: We will know God, even as we are fully known. No more obstacle, no more barrier, no more distrust. Life will be the way it always was meant to be. We get a taste of that life even now: God has given us his Spirit so that we do know him. God has placed his name on your forehead in your baptism. When you were baptized, the sign of the holy cross was marked on you and the name of the triune God was placed on you. You belong to God. You are his. You are his dear children, baptized Christians. You bear his saving name.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.” Yes, your citizenship is already in heaven. As baptized believers, our sin-stained robes have been washed in the cleansing blood of Christ. Therefore, we are ready to enter the new Jerusalem, through the gates of pearl, by the merits of Jesus Christ your Savior.

This is your way in. There is no other access. Only through Christ, through faith in him, do we have robes ready to enter. If you think your garments are clean enough on your own, you are sadly mistaken, and you will be barred from entering. Likewise, only the thirsty, who realize their need and look to Christ to meet it–only the thirsty will be able to drink from the water of life. If you are thirsting for the righteousness only Christ can give, come to him today and drink freely from the living waters. “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” By grace, through faith in Christ, you have a share in the tree of life and in the holy city.

The new Jerusalem, as it is described in Revelation 21 and 22, has the best qualities of both a city and a garden. That has been the dream of many urban planners over the years, to create a city that combines the best of both worlds. The official motto of the city where I grew up, Chicago–the city’s motto is, in Latin, “Urbs in horto,” which means, “City in a garden.” The hope and vision of the founders of the city way back in 1837 was to establish a city that would have, besides the bustle of a city, the beauty of a garden. “Urbs in horto. City in a garden.” Decades later, in 1909, the architect Daniel Burnham developed a master plan for Chicago that would ensure that that vision would become a reality. The Burnham Plan called for preserving the entire lakefront, running the length of the city, as permanent green space and parkland, never to be ruined by unsightly industrial development. And it established many parks throughout the city. The city of Chicago has more public parkland and green space than any other city in America. “Urbs in horto. City in a garden.”

In spite of that beautiful Burnham Plan, Chicago does have its share of problems: violent crime, rundown neighborhoods, heavy traffic, woke politicians, and the like. But it still has that beautiful lakefront and all those parks, combined with a gleaming downtown skyline, all the museums, and all the cultural advantages of a great city.

“Urbs in horto. City in a garden.” Throughout history, people have wanted to achieve that ideal and combine the best of both worlds, a city and a garden. A city, at its best, is a place of community, of interaction among people. A city is where people can do things together in close proximity that they could not do apart, if they were alone and isolated. But because of the problems that often come with urbanization–crime, corruption, congestion–we also like the appeal of country life: nature, beauty, clean air, fresh water, nice scenery. Oh, if only we could combine the two, city life and garden beauty, and strike the perfect balance!

Well, guess what? That’s where we’re headed! Toward the perfect paradise. The holy city, the new Jerusalem, will truly be a city in a garden. Paradise was lost through our fall into sin, and we were driven out of the garden. Paradise now has been restored through Christ our Savior, and you and I, praise God, are headed there. “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”