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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight we have heard again of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, dead, and buried—actions He Himself essentially described as “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53), darkness that accompanies ungodliness and immorality, in other words, evil. Perhaps fitting, then, on this Good Friday is our considering the Seventh and final Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil”, as we continue our special‑services Lenten sermon‑series on the Lord’s Prayer in light of the words and deeds of our Lord’s life and ministry, especially those words and deeds of His Passion and Resurrection. The Seventh Petition’s two key words—“deliver” and “evil”—are not actually used together in the narrative of our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, nor are they used much together at all, likely because the word for “deliver” is used so seldom, a total of only two times in the four Gospel accounts, once in St. Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:13) and once in His account of our Lord’s Passion, as the Jewish leaders mocked Jesus (Matthew 27:43).
In St. Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer, the translation of the Seventh Petition’s other key word, “evil”, is debated. The grammatical gender of the Greek word can be either masculine, meaning the “Evil One”, or it can be neuter, meaning “evil things”. St. Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer does not help us in this case, since it lacks the Seventh Petition for the deliverance from evil, as it did the Third Petition for the doing of God’s will, perhaps similarly seeing the Seventh as included in the preceding petitions, especially the Sixth, regarding not being led into temptation.
Translating either “Evil One” or “evil things” may not make all that much of a difference. Our praying “Deliver us from evil”, as we know the Seventh Petition, certainly includes our praying God to deliver us from the Evil One. Similarly, praying God for deliverance from the “Evil One” certainly can include praying for deliverance from all evil, since all evil ultimately originates with the Devil. Jesus says that the Devil is a liar and the father of lies and that he was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). As a result, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther says in the Large Catechism, that the Devil “incessantly seeks our life and vents his anger by causing accidents and injury to our bodies;” he breaks the necks of some and drives others to insanity, he drowns still others, and he hounds yet others to suicide or other catastrophes (LC III:115). In short, the Devil is the sum of all evil and obstructs everything else for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: the hallowing of God’s Name, the coming of His Kingdom, the doing of His will, and so forth (LC III:113, 118). The Devil may be the sum of all evil and obstruct the things for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, but the world and our sinful nature also are evil and obstruct the things for which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, even (perhaps especially!) deliverance from evil.
The ultimate deliverance from evil is death itself, or at least a good or a Christian death. We ought to desire such a death, for it is the beginning of eternal life, but, instead, we may cling to this life as if it is the only life. We ought to desire a good or Christian death, but, instead, the devil, the world, and our sinful nature keep us “too occupied and immersed in the matters and affairs of this world and of this life” (Chemnitz, Lord’s Prayer, p.93). Some degree of care and concern for people and matters we would leave behind may well be appropriate, but probably too often our care and concern are, in fact, sinful pride or arrogance: thinking people or things would not survive without us or, worse, that God could not look after them indirectly through others or directly Himself. We ought to desire a good or Christian death, but, instead, perhaps deep down eternity in heaven does not appeal to us, and we would rather stay here and have fun. From such sinful thoughts, as from all our sins and from our sinful nature, God calls us to repent.
In Jesus’s teaching parables about the Kingdom of God, He occasionally mentioned the Evil One (Matthew 13:19, 38), and those parables and others warn of the coming judgment and the resulting separation of the righteous from the unrighteous. Though that judgment may seem to be a long way off, we do not know when it will come, either for the whole world or for us individually. In the meantime, we cannot deliver ourselves from our sin, much less from our sinful nature, the world, or the Evil One. Deliverance from such evil is not within our grasp! Such deliverance is only according to God’s great mercy. Such redemption and freedom is only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and burial were not for His sins, for He had none. Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and burial were for your sins and mine. We brought Jesus’s deep affliction; our sin caused His crucifixion (LW 109:3). Jesus loves you and me so much that He would have died for you or for me if any one of us individually was the only sinner on earth. For us and for our salvation, He faced all the forces of evil in His Passion and was Himself delivered from them, and He was delivered by death. Quoting from Psalm 22, which we heard last night, the Jewish leaders mocked Jesus while He hung on the cross, saying of Jesus, “He trusts in God; let God deliver Him now, if [God] desires Him” (Matthew 27:43). In fact, God did desire Him and so did deliver Him. Now, when we trust in God to forgive our sins, God desires and delivers us, on account of Jesus’s death that first Good Friday! Jesus is our personal Savior, our Deliverer from evil. He delivers us from our body of death (Romans 7:24); He delivers us from the domain of darkness (Colossians 1:13); He delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). For, by grace through faith in Jesus, God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. And, He forgives our sin (or “delivers us from evil”), through His means of grace, His Word and His Sacraments.
His means of grace, His Word and His Sacraments, restore us to a right relationship with God. The preaching of the Gospel calls us to repentance and faith. Holy Baptism makes us His children. Individual Absolution forgives the sins that trouble us most and that separate us from Him. The Sacrament of the Altar not only proclaims His death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26), but the Sacrament of the Altar also in bread gives us the same body given for us on the cross and in wine pours out for us the same blood poured out for us on the cross. Believing that Jesus is able to and does deliver us and receiving His deliverance in preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and Communion, we do not need to fear an evil or unchristian death. We do not need to fear death at all, for death begins our full appreciation of the eternal life that is already now ours by way of His forgiveness and deliverance through His means of grace.
So delivered from our enemies, we serve or worship God without fear (Luke 1:74). We love Him and live to Him by loving and living to Him in our neighbors. Yet, without God we are not safe in this world for a single hour, so, as Jesus in His High Priestly Prayer prayed that we be kept from the Evil One (John 17:15), so Jesus continues to pray for us now (1 John 2:1). Similarly, St. Paul prayed such the believers to be delivered from evil and asked believers to pray such for him, perhaps thereby indicating that they should pray the Lord’s Prayer (2 Thessalonians 3:1-3; 2 Timothy 4:18). And, with the Lord’s Prayer, we pray such deliverance from evil for ourselves; as the Small Catechism puts it, we pray: “that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this vale of sorrow to Himself in heaven” (SC III:20).
The Small Catechism’s reference to “vale of sorrow” (or “vale of tears”, as I and others learned it from the 19-43 edition of the Catechism)—the reference comes from a somewhat obscure Hebrew expression in the sixth verse of Psalm 84. More-modern Bible versions translate the expression “Valley of Baca”, which is thought to be an arid place near Jerusalem that apparently was lined either with balsam trees that exuded a tear-like gum or with tombs from which black water flowed, and so either way the valley would have been known as the “Valley of Weeping”. Regardless of the origin of the name, we can say this life is a “vale of tears” or “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4).
In this valley, in this life, we pray that God keeps us from all harm, poverty, shame, tragic misery, and heartache, and we pray that God helps us endure whatever troubles He allows us to experience. But, praying “Deliver us from evil”, we also pray for God to take us from this life to Himself in heaven. Our Lord’s death on that first Good Friday was a deliverance from evil for Him, and our Lord’s death on that first Good Friday was a deliverance from evil also for us, for it made our deaths not a continuation of evil but a deliverance from evil. At Jesus’s birth, the aged Simeon could welcome his own death (Luke 2:29-30), and, at Jesus’s death, the repentant thief on the cross could do the same (Luke 23:42-43) Likewise, you and I can welcome our own death. Thus, our Good Friday observance is somber, but it is certainly not also without its joy, joy now and joy for eternity!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +