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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.
Historical events like those of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession on June 25, 15‑30, are the stuff of Hollywood’s dramatic “based on a true story” movies. Consider the 2003 movie “Luther”, which essentially climaxes both with the reading of the Augsburg Confession aloud in German over two hours that afternoon and eight princes’ earlier bowing before the emperor, willing to have their heads cut off rather than deny their faith expressed in the Augsburg Confession. Those princes did not get to that point of belief and confession on their own, of course, but, as it was for them, so it is for us, “God’s Word leads us to believe and confess”.
Tonight’s Old Testament Reading is part of a larger section of the recorded prophecy of Isaiah that deals with the Lord’s Suffering Servant and Redeemed Israel, and our excerpt extends and describes the Lord’s to some extent resistible invitation. We all probably can relate to rain and snow’s falling from the sky, watering the earth, as it were making the earth bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. But, we may struggle more with God’s Word’s going out from His mouth, not returning to Him empty, but accomplishing that for which He purposes, succeeding in the things for which He sent it. If God’s Word is so effective, where are the masses of people tonight who do not have valid excuses to skip this commemoration of what is arguably the birth of the “evangelical catholic” or “Lutheran Church” and its publicly confessing what all along had been the true teaching and practice of the Christian faith?
We are here, of course, but, although there are no pillows, stuffed animals, and cookies, this nevertheless is a “safe space”, where there is little likelihood of conflict, criticism, or threatening action. The original princes making the Augsburg Confession spoke before their “king”, who, though he did not, nevertheless could have cut off their heads, and they were not put to shame (Introit antiphon Psalm 119:46). Far less dramatic usually are our opportunities to confess or deny the same faith that we claim. For example, what do we say or do when a coworker, classmate, friend, or family-member wrongly says something about children’s being innocent or about their “making a decision” to believe in Jesus? What about when they say something about Jesus’s not being true God? About their contributing to their salvation by their works? About not baptizing infants or other children before they reach some imagined age of accountability, consent, or reason? What do we say or do when someone we know says something about pastors not having authority to forgive sins? About the Lord’s Supper’s only being symbolic? Or, about an imagined “rapture” and second chances for unbelievers living at the time to come to faith? In all likelihood, too often we let these and other false beliefs addressed by the Augsburg Confession go by us unaddressed, maybe under the guise of tolerance or of our not wanting to “cause” division, when the division has already been caused by their departure from the faith. We sin in such denials of our faith, as we sin in countless other ways. For any one such sin, we deserve temporal and eternal death.
But, God’s Word to His people through the prophet Isaiah in tonight’s Old Testament Reading is God’s Word to us, as well. Out of His great love for us, He mercifully and graciously calls and empowers us to seek Him while He may be found, to call upon Him while He is near. When the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts, when they return to the Lord so that the Lord may have compassion on Him, then our God abundantly pardons their sins. God abundantly pardons all their sins, whatever their sins might be. God abundantly pardons all their sins for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
The central article of the Augsburg Confession is what we heard in tonight’s Epistle Reading (Romans 10:5-17), namely the righteousness that comes by God’s grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, through faith in Him. God in human flesh, Jesus perfectly kept the law that we fail to keep, and He died on the cross in order to make up for our failure to keep the law. Through faith, we receive both His active righteousness of His having kept the law for us and His passive righteousness of His having suffered for our failure to keep the law. Because of what Jesus has done for you and me, the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He adorns the humble with salvation; those whose help is the God of Jacob and whose hope is in the Lord his God are truly blessed (Gradual Psalm 149:4; 146:5). Those who trust in the Lord of Hosts are blessed with the forgiveness of sins, including the sins of denying and otherwise failing to confess Him, and so they are also blessed with the life and salvation that comes with such forgiveness (Verse Psalm 84:12). With the heart one believes and with the mouth one confesses that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Jesus from the dead and so one is justified and saved. Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame, for everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.
After St. Paul in tonight’s Epistle Reading made that quotation from the book of the prophet Joel (Joel 2:32), St. Paul closely connects saving faith with the sending of preachers, just as in the Augsburg Confession, where primary author Philip Melanchthon writes that, in order for us to obtain saving faith in Jesus Christ, God instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry to preach the Gospel purely and rightly administer the Sacraments—Holy Baptism, individual Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar—through which Gospel and Sacraments, God gives the Holy Spirit and works faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel. God’s Word and Sacraments are accomplishing that which He purposes and succeeding in the things for which He sent it, both when He works faith and when people who reject His gracious gift end up by that Word being eternally condemned.
Why some are born (or adopted into) and raised in faithful Lutheran homes and others are not, God does not tell us. Why some not so born (or adopted) and raised come to the Lutheran faith later and others do not, God does not tell us. Why some so raised or who have come fall away and others do not, and why some never come, again, God does not tell us. But, He does tell us both that He earnestly desires all to be saved and that all are not saved. We might think or do things differently, but His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways His ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. As St. Paul was eventually led, so we are led, to believe and confess the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, the unsearchability of His judgments, and the inscrutability of His ways (Romans 11:33). We stick with what He reveals to us. God’s Word leads us so to believe and confess, as we remain, what Jesus in tonight’s Gospel Reading (John 15:1-11) described as, branches of the true vine bearing more and more fruit.
When the 2003 “Luther” movie ended with the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession, some critics pointed out that such was hardly the end of Luther’s life, since he lived nearly another 16 years. Over those years, Luther remained faithful to the Augsburg Confession, and later Luther’s own Small and Large Catechisms and his Smalcald Articles were combined with the Augsburg Confession and other confessional writings of the Lutheran Church in The Book of Concord that continues to (or at least “should” continue to) norm our teaching and practice as congregations and also to be our individual confessions of faith to this day. The dramatic script of Luther’s life-movie could have been finished, but the perhaps less-dramatic script of our life-movies is (from our perspective at least) unfinished, though in at least one way we know how things turn out. The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress; God is our refuge and strength, our present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear (Introit Psalm 46:1-3, 7), to believe and confess, or anything else. Our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, pours out His Holy Spirit and so bestows on His Church Militant His saving peace, until we have the eternal peace of the Church Triumphant in heaven.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +