"He Loves Us To The End" (John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

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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:

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come 
to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

 

Jesus utterly loved His apostles. Jesus utterly loves you. He loves His whole creation.

 

Tonight is Maundy Thursday, or also called, Holy Thursday. The word “maundy” is derived from the Latin word mandatum, which means command. For it was on this night that Jesus gave the command to His disciples saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

 

“God is love” (1 John 4:16). John 3:16-17 sum up God’s love for us: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

 

It was out of God’s love that caused Him to create the world in the first place. And His love endures forever. Jesus is the embodiment of this love. He is love in human flesh.

 

But we are the opposite of what God intended us to be. Instead of truly loving God and loving our neighbor, we are curved in on ourselves. We love ourselves. We would rather be served by others than to serve. We daily sin against the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods,” since we want to be God. We grasp equality with God as Adam and Eve did. We follow right in line with the original sin. We all want to be almighty God. This is supreme idolatry.

 

We so often fail at love. But what are we best at? We are best at being selfish. We are best at putting ourselves as the center of the universe and that everyone else should love and serve you. We use people. We manipulate people for our own benefit. A holy and just God would have every reason to give us what we truly deserve: eternal death apart from God. May we repent of our selfishness.

Because of our sinful condition, we cannot change ourselves into holy and righteous people. All we can do is possibly turn us poor, miserable sinners into sinners. Maybe, we could sin less, but we will continue to sin. And all sin separates us from God. It’s our sin that pulls us away from God’s love, while God is reaching out to us in His love. Our sinful nature wants nothing to do with God and His unconditional forgiveness.

 

For us to change, we must die and be born again as new people, with new minds, new thinking, and a new disposition. Clearly, we cannot do that. We can’t kill ourselves and make ourselves alive as holy people.

 

But God is love and as a loving God, He “desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4a). So, how does God show this love so that people would be saved?

 

We see this love in the Son of God who came down from heaven to serve, give everything, even Himself. He was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin and placed in a feeder’s trough. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”(Matthew 8:20). Jesus was willing to leave everything behind and empty Himself of all the glory of heaven and the treasures of the entire universe to live among us and one of us.

 

What man covets; God laid aside. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

 

We all try to serve. We attempt to lose ourselves in service to our fellow man, but ultimately, self-righteousness and a self-serving attitude win the day.

 

But Jesus loves us to the end. On that first Maundy Thursday, Jesus used that occasion to demonstrate His complete, unwavering love for them and for us, a love He bore to the very end. The Passover dinner was underway, and this would be His last. On this night, He would institute the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of our sins and to strengthen our weak faith. On this night, He knew that He would be betrayed. Yet, Jesus was still in control. Heaven’s plan was coming together. It was now up to the Son of God to see it through.

 

So, Jesus, gives His disciples an old commandment, to which He renews. He speaks the words of Leviticus 19: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), to which He had previously renewed elsewhere in the Gospels. But Jesus uses this occasion to not just speak of this commandment, but to show this commandment in action.

 

So, Jesus rose from dinner and served His disciples as a slave would serve his master and his master’s guests. He washes their feet.

 

Now, is Jesus instituting a new sacrament? No. For He says, “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). What Jesus is doing serves as an object lesson, a pattern of humility for Christians to follow, that still applies to us. You see, a true leader, a true friend, a true neighbor, is one who serves others. This act of washing His disciples’ feet tells us that a follower of Jesus will act in humble service as Jesus did.

 

This new commandment is not being spoken about, but shown. And by showing His love in action, He is giving this commandment a fresh and new quality. So, Jesus’ command was to love one another as He had loved them by lowing Himself to a servant. And from that night on, Jesus’ disciples were to practice that love in the light of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

 

This love is called “agape.” This love sacrifices for others. Jesus is the embodiment of this love. He gives and He gives, and He gives. He gives of Himself tonight in His very body and blood under bread and wine to forgive your sins.

 

Later that night, Jesus would “give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) as He would “give for the life of the world [His] flesh” (John 6:51). 

 

As Jesus hung on the cross one day later, He took upon Himself all our wickedness, all our iniquity, all our brokenness, all our pain. He reconciled you and me back to God the Father. He changed us. He took all our selfishness upon Himself. He made a way to reconciliation. He made peace by the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20).

 

God loved you so much that He died for you. And God did not remain dead. He rose, so that you would also rise. In Christ alone, you are a new creation. In Christ alone, you are born again. This is what happened at your Baptism. It was through the water and Word that the Holy Spirit gave you a new mind with new thinking and a new disposition. 

Now, through Christ’s love, you are able to look outside yourself. You are now able to serve your neighbor in agape love – sacrificial love. You don’t ask for anything in return. You just serve out of love. You serve in loving service to God.

 

God’s heart is one of eternal love, of sacrificial love. He loved you even before you loved Him. For “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

God loves us to the end. He loves by serving. Serving is what defines the one true God. He serves us sinners with His forgiveness in Word and Sacrament. He serves us life and salvation. May we all repent of our selfishness and receive Christ’s love through the forgiveness of sins. And may He continually empower us to “be imitators of God, as beloved Children” walking in love as Christ loved us (Ephesians 5:1-2) by giving and serving our neighbor in sacrificial love. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Sermon for Thanksgiving: "Giving Thanks Through Prayer" (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

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:

Happy Thanksgiving! This evening we have gathered in God’s house to give thanks to Him for all He has done for us!

Thanksgiving is a day with many traditions, especially with family, food, and football. Among these traditions, comes travel, since most families live states apart, but on Thanksgiving families re-unite. In recent years, the days around Thanksgiving have been among the busiest travel days of the year, and the Sunday following Thanksgiving has consistently been the busiest travel day of the year. So, we certainly desire to be with family to celebrate this national holiday.

As the family re-unites, we come together around food, especially turkey and all the fixings – the cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, casseroles, and the dinner rolls. We come together at the dining room table and share stories.

Then for many, there is football. Either sitting together watching it on television or tossing the football in the backyard, or both.

But most importantly, we come together to give thanks. 

Tomorrow is the National Day of Thanksgiving, and that day is a very specific day about giving thanks. But you may not know that the National Day of Thanksgiving has only been a fixed holiday on our calendars since 1941. But this holiday is deeply rooted in America. One could say, this is the one holiday that is uniquely American.

We celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. Its original observance was in 1621 as a harvest festival held at the Plymouth Colony. It was observed by the pilgrims – those puritans who emigrated from Europe – and the Native Americans who helped them plant and harvest.

During the colonial period, there were many observances of thanksgiving.

After the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress recommended a day of thanksgiving for the return of peace in 1784. Then in 1789, President George Washington issued the first National Day of Thanksgiving for the establishment of this new republic. After the War of 1812, President James Madison called for a day of thanksgiving. But national interest began to wane as various cities and states picked random days for thanksgiving.

But what we think of the National Day of Thanksgiving today began under President Abraham Lincoln. In Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation, he noted that the nation had need for community prayer and thanksgiving to God.

Today, the National Day of Thanksgiving may have lost its former focus as a day of prayer. Instead, we often have this day focus upon ourselves. I’m sure we have all grown up with the question we hear so often this time of year: “What are you thankful for?” That is a good question, but what about this question: “Who are you thankful for?”

When you first heard today’s epistle read, you may wonder, what does this have to do with the Day of Thanksgiving? Well, it has everything to do with Thanksgiving! 

Abraham Lincoln was on to something. Thanksgiving is all about prayer. In fact, this is exactly what the Holy Spirit inspired St. Paul. He wrote: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (1 Timothy 2:1). For Paul, this is a matter of first importance. He says: “Pray, pray, and keep on praying for all people.” Here, Paul uses four synonyms for prayer, but they each have a particular nuance.

First “supplications.” So, what are supplications? Well, they are what we individually say to God when we approach Him with our needs. They are a call for help from God. “Lord, please heal my ailment.” “Lord, please help me with my finances.” But always, when we approach Him with our needs, we always end our prayer with “Your will be done.” No matter what, God knows our individual needs, but by our going to Him with our supplications we acknowledge Him as the only source who alone will satisfy our needs.

Second, we hear Paul using the general word “prayer” in our English text. But the nuance  in the original Greek [προσευχὰς (“pro-se-uch-as”)] is that of devotion and reverence as Christians approach their Lord. We acknowledge that He is the giver of all things as He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Third, Paul urges “intercessions.” So, what makes this form a prayer different? Intercessions are prayers on behalf of someone else. Here, we petition and appeal to God about the concerns we have for others. In fact, the Prayer of the Church is an intercession prayer. Through the Prayer of the Church, we pray boldly and confidently as we bring our petitions for all people according to their needs before God’s throne of grace.

Lastly, Paul urges “thanksgivings.” Thanksgivings are expressions of gratitude for past mercies received. Thanksgivings are always appropriate, even when earthly circumstances are difficult. Wemay be prone to say: “What am I thankful for?” “Do I really feel grateful?” Often, we like to focus upon our emotions, how we feel. But thankfulness is not an emotional response, but a spiritual discipline. If we feel that things don’t seem to be going your way, we are to always give thanks, because we are never separated from God’s love and mercy in Christ.

You see, thanksgiving is a response. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Why do we love God? We love Him, because “[He] sent His only Son in the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). You see, while we were still enemies of God, Jesus suffered and died in our place. Again, the Lord initiates and He leads us to acknowledge it, so we then give thanks for it.

We give thanks for the gift of Christ, as our one and only Savior from the power of sin, so that through Him, we have life!

For Paul, these four terms for prayer are aspects of first importance for our prayer life. We make requests for specific needs. We bring those in view before God always knowing that His will is done. We appeal boldly on behalf of others. And we give thankfulness to God for them.

Just imagine this. As Paul urges us to pray, he doesn’t just urge us to pray for ourselves and fellow Christians to God, but he urges us to pray for all people, including “kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:2a). And who was the earthly ruler of Paul’s day?  Caesar Nero. During Nero’s reign Christians were persecuted because they refused to worship him, and Paul himself suffered martyrdom. Despite this, heathen rulers are among those who need our prayers for even their authority was established by God (Romans 13:1). So, all earthly authorities need our prayer, especially those who may seek to harm the church.

Prayer for our nation and her leaders has an important purpose: that we might freely confess Christ as Savior. Rather than becoming a part of today’s culture, we are set apart by God as the “communion of saints.” Therefore, we pray for those in authority “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2). The Church then - can freely carry out the Lord’s work and nourish her people by Word and Sacraments.

As Christians, the National Day of Thanksgiving has a greater meaning for us than just one day on the calendar to give thanks. Again, the word “thanksgiving” means “grateful acknowledgment for the past mercies of God.” This leads us to come to God in prayer. 

 

We have so much to be thankful for:

§  He gives us His Word, which is the living voice of our Lord. 

§  Through water and the Word of God, we are brought into His kingdom in Holy Baptism.

§  In the Lord’s Supper, we receive Christ’s Body and Blood, which is the spiritual nourishment that gives us forgiveness of sins and renewed strength for the daily tasks of this life.

Throughout all of our days, the Triune God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – provides for all of our needs of body and soul.

As we gather at each Divine Service, we come together in prayer. We ask God to continue to bestow His grace on us, as we pray for the church, other people, and our leaders, since “[He] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). We pray before God’s throne of grace the needs of the people of God.

Hearing the truth of God’s Word, we are confident in prayer. We know that God promises to hear and answer our prayers.

On this National Day of Thanksgiving, we confess Jesus Christ as Savior and the giver of all good gifts. We give thanks in our worship and in our prayers. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Sermon for Easter 5: "The Branches of the Vine" (John 15:1-8)

 

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

[Intro]

Jesus said: “I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

God’s Word is full of imagery depicting the relationship between Jesus and all who are baptized into Him. There are the pictures of Jesus and His Bride, the Church; of Jesus as the head and we as His body; of Jesus the Good Shepherd and of us His sheep. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear Jesus saying that He is the true Vine and we are united to Him in faith as the branches.

Now, what happens to a marriage where a husband and a wife are not united? What happens to a body that is separated from its head? What happens to the sheep without a shepherd? What happens to branches that do not remain in the Vine?

We have been united to Christ by faith, as branches to the Vine. The Vine – Jesus – is the source of our life and the fruit that we bear. Today on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, Jesus teaches us how we remain connected branches to the Vine as His disciples.

Jesus teaches us saying, “I am the true Vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1-2).

Many of us have fertilized and pruned a variety of plants. Through this process, the plant grows and remains healthy. But what about us?

Jesus says that He is the true Vine and we are the branches. In saying this, like plants, we, too, must be fertilized and pruned.

Branches are useful in bearing fruit. Their source of energy and nourishment depends on being connected to the Vine. Even so, some branches appear connected but do not produce fruit because something is wrong with the connection. So, the vinedresser cuts off those branches.

Likewise, if the branch would lay unfertilized and unpruned, it would degenerate into a wild and unfruitful vine which would finally perish entirely. But when it is well cultivated, fertilized, pruned, and stripped of its unnecessary leaves, it develops its full strength and yields wine that is not only abundant but is also good and delicious. The question is, how are we fertilized and pruned?

[The Pruning of the Branches]

Jesus said: “I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. Here Jesus is speaking of salvation. We cannot do anything apart from Jesus to inherit salvation. So, apart from Jesus, we are disconnected. As disconnected people, the only thing we can look forward to is eternal death and damnation. Now, this is nothing to look forward to.

But the triune God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – wishes that everyone would be connected to Him. Like the disconnected Ethiopian Eunuch in our First Reading from Acts 8, we, too, were all once disconnected from Christ. But the Ethiopian Eunuch did not remain disconnected. You see, as soon as he was Baptized, this man was grafted into the Vine. Like you and me, this is what happened to us at our Baptism. At the font, through the water and the Word, we went from disconnected from Christ to connected in Christ. Here, through our Baptism into Christ, we became “a new creation” as branches of the Vine (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Now, as I have said many times before, baptism is not a get into heaven free card. Yes, we receive the ability to believe in Jesus as our Savior at Baptism, but we must also be pruned by God the Father – the Vinedresser.

As Jesus teaches us in the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

One aspect of our pruning is part two of the Great Commission: teaching. Through the preaching of God’s Word in the Divine Service, through catechism and Sunday School, we are taught the sound doctrine of God that comforts and saves. We are taught God’s unchanging Truth.

Unfortunately, not everyone connected to the Vine wants to hear God’s unchanging Truth. This is because our sinful nature remains. This is a constant struggle between our sinful flesh and the new man that we became when we were grafted into Christ at our Baptism.

So, instead of receiving the teaching joyfully as good branches, some become lazy Christians. They have God’s Word and His pure doctrine, but they do not live-in conformity with it. Others refuse the teaching and become wild branches. Now, like all branches, some grow very large. As Martin Luther once preached on this text, “This pruning is bad for the false branches; it frightens them. But the others, which [God the Father] He leaves on the vine, they suffer no harm when He trims them. This is to their advantage. But for the wild branches, it means being cut off and thrown into the fire” (LW 24, 201).

These false branches are not cut immediately. Like all branches, they are baptized, they hear the Gospel, and they have the forgiveness of sins. God is always giving every branch, even the wild branch a chance to repent and become good again, since God desires the salvation of every branch.

Because of this, we must not let our judgments be determined by the size and strength of wild branches. No, our one concern must be to recognize the true branches of Christ so that we only observe who has and retains the doctrine in Scripture in its truth and purity. “In this way,” Luther says, “you can see and know who are the true Christians” (LW 24, 203).

But this demands patience and perseverance in the faith. For God does not cut off the wild branches as soon as they emerge from the stalk; He permits them to grow until it is clear what they are. For this reason, Judas Iscariot was among the apostles, heretics were among the Early Church Fathers, and heretics are still among us today.

Instead of remaining connected to the Vine, these false branches chose to split from the true doctrine of Christ and into myths. These wild branches teach from the impure heart with which they falsify and abuse Scripture. Yes, they partake of the sap of the Vine, but they do not bear fruit, but only do harm. For as soon as they get this sap, they corrupt it and turn it into deadly poison for themselves and others.

Christ says: a “branch cannot bear fruit by itself,” so “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). So, without faith in Christ we are like a severed branch that dries up and is thrown into the fire. Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Without faith, our sinful human nature – as inherited by our first parents Adam and Eve – seeks and trusts in human help that suits our own desires and we choose to listen to what our itching ears want to hear, rather than the Truth from God’s Word (2 Timothy 4:3-5). Our sinful nature convinces many of us to trust human wisdom rather than to trust Christ. For many, instead of abiding in the Vine, we may choose to abide in earthly things for our hope and comfort. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from Jesus and become disconnected.

Another way that we are pruned is by the sinful world. Luther says that God the Father lets unbelieving leaders fertilize, prune, and trim us – the branches – through various persecutions, so that our faith would be strengthened. So, even when the Church is persecuted for remaining in the Vine, God will use the pruning of persecution to bring us – His branches – closer to Him, and so strengthen and preserve His true branches.

Likewise, many of us have gone through hardships in our lives. Many of us are going through them now. Here is yet another way God the Father prunes us, so that we can bear more fruit. Through every hardship, God the Father uses them to grow us closer to Christ, the Vine. Now, no hardship is ever fun or appealing, but God uses every hardship for our benefit, so that we would grow ever closer to Him as we trust and rely upon Him.

[Remaining Connected to the Vine]

So, how do we as branches remain connected to Christ, the Vine? We are maintained in the faith through the Means of Grace, in doing so, we remain in Christ and He remains in us. Through the Word, God the Father prunes us, and Jesus – the Vine – nourishes and energizes us – the branches – to live in faith.

Through the Word, Christ cleanses His followers as He shapes our wills to coincide with His will so that we bear much fruit and prove to be Christ’s disciples. You see, God’s Word – as revealed in the Scriptures – brings us together with Jesus and keeps us together, like a vine and branches. Through the Word, we bear fruit.

Here in the Divine Service, Christ comes to nourish us – to feed us – through His Word and Sacrament, so that we would remain connected to Him. He comes to us saying: “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 6:54-56).

As we are fed and nourished, we receive the fruits of Christ’s Cross: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Through this divine nourishment, we are able to bear good fruit. As branches connected to the Vine, we live through Christ and we have life through Christ. Through these Means of Grace, the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith in Jesus – the true Vine – who alone laid down His life for us and for our salvation, and took it up again, so that we – by grace through faith in Him – would remain connected to Him, the one and only true Vine.

Through being connected to Jesus – the true Vine – we produce fruit. These fruits are good works for the benefit of our neighbor. These fruits are the thoughts and actions that please God in accordance with His will and glorify Him. Apart from Jesus, we could not do any good works. So, through the Vine’s Means of Grace, Jesus empowers us to confess Him as the Son of God and to live God-pleasing lives as we abide in Him and grow ever more connected to Him (1 John 4:15).

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus spoke various “I am” statements, so that we – His hearers – would have a clearer understanding on who He is and the blessings that He provides to all believers. As the true Vine, Jesus gives us – the branches – the victory over the power of sin, death, and Satan, and all by grace through faith in Him alone!

O Lord Jesus, help us Your branches to always remain in You, the true Vine, for in You alone, we have forgiveness, life, and salvation. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

T SOLI DEO GLORIA T