Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death” (John 8:51).
Today’s Gospel reading picks up in mid-conversation between the Jewish religious authorities and Jesus. These Jewish religious authorities have been bombarding Jesus with question after question as to catch Jesus in a lie. But the problem for them is, Jesus only speaks the truth.
Earlier in John 8, Jesus was telling these Jewish authorities things that did not fit into their self-made notions of religion. So, Jesus told them that they were of the world, but He was not of this world (John 8:23). Jesus also told them, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:21).
Now, in today’s Gospel text, Jesus tells them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death” (John 8:51). To His hearers, they were likely thinking, “Who does Jesus think he is?! Our Father Abraham died! The prophets died! Everyone dies!”
So, who does this Man think He is? Well, since the question has been asked, Jesus is the Son of God, the eternal Son of the Father, the One who was with the Father before all things were made. He is the One who became incarnate, who came into our world, who took on our flesh. He is the One who came so that He could sympathize with our weaknesses, our fears, our illnesses. He is the timeless One, the One who existed before Abraham, and yet He also became Abraham’s descendant. He is the One, the only One who can say, “If anyone keeps My word, He will never see death.”
Jesus goes on saying, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). So, what exactly did Abraham believe about Jesus?
Well, Scripture gives no record of Abraham saying anything about Jesus, but Abraham certainly believed in this very word of promise. Abraham believed it. He kept it. He held on to it.
Remember how Abraham saddled his donkey and took his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, to the mountain as the Lord had directed him? Remember how he took the wood and laid it on the back of his son, his only son, Isaac? Remember how he built an altar and then tied up his son, his only son Issac on the top of that altar?
Abraham held onto the Word of the Lord. Abraham believed and kept the Word of the Lord, and on that day, his son, his only son Isaac did not see death.
God did all of this to test Abraham. God did all of this to test Abraham’s faith. And this test of Abraham served as a preview of another son of Abraham, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself.
Jesus is the promised Son who carries the wood of His cross upon His back. He goes up Mount Calvary to make the great sacrifice to rescue us from the infection of our sin. He is the beloved Son who willingly bound Himself and laid upon the altar of the cross to deliver us from death. Jesus is the Lamb provided for the burnt offering. Jesus is the Lamb who is offered for us, who willingly caught Himself in the thicket of our sin and wears the crown of thorns upon His head.
So, on Mount Calvary, it is Jesus who provided our deliverance from everything that infects us: sin and death.
So, how can Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death”? He can say that because He came to see death for us and to give us His life. He came to drink the cup of suffering in order that we may be released from death’s grasp. He came to be our Great High Priest to sacrifice not a sheep or a goat, but His holy precious blood, so that He would purify our consciences.
So, if we keep His Word, by clinging to His Word, we are rescued from the power of sin, which is eternal death.
We have His Word. You hear His Word each Lord’s Day. You read His Word through Bible study and devotion. You sing His Word through hymnody and liturgy. Since we have His Word, let us keep His Word. Since we have His Word, let us hold onto His Word with our dear life. Remember, it is Jesus who also proclaims: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though He die, yet shall he live, and everyone who believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26) and “I am the way, and the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
So, if you cling to Jesus as your Lord, you will live forever. For St. Paul proclaims, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). So, nothing ever can take away eternal life away from you as long as you cling to Jesus and His Word!
But as poor, miserable sinners, how do we keep His Word? For we are so much better at not keeping His Word as we ignore Him, and listen to false voices and our own hearts. We are so much better at dishonoring Jesus. We so often fear, love and trust in created things rather than in God, the Creator. We so often do not fear God’s wrath by avoiding every sin. We often hold grudges and harbor resentment against our neighbor. We have all lied, cheated, and stole what did not belong to us. We have all sinned in thought, word, and deed by our own fault, our own grievous fault. So, we are all not too good at keeping Christ’s Word.
So, if we can’t keep His Word, Christ will keep it for us. Jesus is the One who promises: “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:54-55). So, that is the answer. That is how we keep His Word so that we will never see death. We keep His Word through the reception of His Means of Grace, His Word and His Sacrament. So, if you are united to Jesus in His Holy Supper of His true Body and His true Blood under bread and wine, you already have the victory over death, because His risen and glorified Body and Blood gives you His life, now and forever.
Jesus gave you faith in His Word through the holy waters mixed with His Word in Holy Baptism. There, you were born of water and the Spirit. There, you were united to Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. There, you were “united with Him in a death like His” so that you would be “united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Romans 6:5).
Again, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death.”Jesus is also the One who sends His called and ordained servants to “forgive the sins of any,” and those sins “are forgiven them” (John 20:23).
So, when you hear those sweet words, “As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” your sins are removed from you. When you hear those words, you are at peace for Christ has blotted those sins away through His death.
On this Holy Trinity Sunday, Jesus also puts the icing on the cake for us. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). You see, through Jesus, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit is recognized in its fullness. The very Son of God enables us to see the Holy Trinity by Him becoming flesh. So, when we see Jesus and hear Jesus and touch Jesus, we also see, hear and touch the fullness of God. In Jesus, we have the Holy Trinity. And so, we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity (Athanasian Creed).
As we confessed the Athanasian Creed earlier, some of you may be thinking about the ending of that creed with its anathemas, its curses. We spoke, “And those who have done good will enter into eternal life” – you may like that. But what did you think about: “And those who have done evil into eternal fire”? What are we to make of that?
Well, what does Jesus say? He says to cling to Him. He says to trust in Him. He calls on us to grow in faith. And how do we grow in faith? By keeping His Word. And we can only keep His Word through receiving His gift of forgiveness through His Means of Grace, His Word and Sacrament.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death.” You have His Word. So, keep it and hold onto it. For He who promises is faithful: “Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life … Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him” (John 6:54, 56).
So, keep His Word as Christ unites Himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit with you in His Supper! Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
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