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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.
Perhaps going back to Tim Rice’s lyrics sung by Elton John for the 19-94 Disney animated musical movie “The Lion King”, the expression “feel the love” is often used in popular parlance either sincerely in a positive way “feel the love” or sarcastically in a negative way “feel the love”. Of course, not feeling the love but seeing the love is commanded by the Divinely‑inspired apostle John in today’s Epistle Reading appointed for All Saints’ Day, as he, perhaps writing from Ephesus to Asia Minor, encourages believers to abide in the Lord so that they might have confidence when the Lord appears (1 John 2:28). St. John encourages the believers by emphasizing both their being children of God already now and what their being children of God means for eternity. This morning, as we consider the Epistle Reading, we direct our thoughts to the theme “See the Love”.
Do we see the love? If not, what do we see? Rising prices and diminishing buying power? Layoffs and closures reflecting a depressed economy? An increasingly‑polarized society with little hope for compromise or unity? Growing frustration and shrinking patience as the coronavirus pandemic seems to be peaking again? Ourselves returning to the same sins over and over? Our loved ones’ or our own bodies wasting away outwardly (2 Corinthians 4:16)? Death as a final, permanent state of decomposition and decay? Do we take such things as showing the kind and magnitude of God’s love for us?
Part of the problem is that we may primarily think about what we see with our eyes instead of what we can perceive by other means—in this case, what God reveals to us, and so what we can know to be true by faith. Of course, by nature, like St. John says of the world, we do not know God, but we are His enemies and persecutors of those who are His (confer Luther, AE 30:265). The devil, the world, and our sinful nature keep us from seeing the kind and magnitude of God’s love for us (confer Luther, AE 30:267; Small Catechism III:11, 18). Because of our sinful nature and all of our sin, we deserve death here in time—whether from the coronavirus or from some other cause—and we deserve torment in hell for eternity.
Through today’s Epistle Reading, as through all of God’s Word, God calls us to repent: to turn away in sorrow from our sinful nature and all of our sin, to trust God to forgive our sinful nature and all our sin for Jesus’s sake, and to want to do better than to keep sinning. As we sang in today’s Psalm, the Lord adorns the humble with salvation (Psalm 149; antiphon: v.4). When we repent, then God forgives our sinful nature and our sin. God forgives our sin of not “seeing” or “perceiving” the kind and magnitude of His love for us, and God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us (Beckwith, CLD III:7)! The Father’s Divine love excels all other loves (LSB 700:1). God loved the world by giving His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). We know love by that Son, the God-man Jesus Christ’s, laying down His life for us (1 John 3:16). There on the cross is the quality and quantity of God’s love for us (confer Lenski, ad loc 1 John 3:1, p.449; TLSB, ad loc 1 John 3:1, p.2175)! On the cross, Jesus died for you and for me, in our place, the death that we deserved. Jesus was crucified for us and raised from the dead, as we also will be raised. There is no merit or worthiness in us, but God the Father loves us because of Who He is. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and He predestined us for adoption to Himself as children through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:4, 5). In Christ Jesus, we are all children of God through faith (Galatians 3:26).
We are children of God born from above by water and the Spirit at the Baptismal Font (John 3:3, 5); the Spirit bears witness that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). We are born not of human blood, flesh, or will but of God (John 1:13). In Holy Baptism we are cleansed by the washing of water with the Word (Ephesians 5:26). There we are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). As we heard in the Epistle Reading, the Father’s love is not only that we are called children of God, but also that we are children of God, for God cannot call us His children without our becoming His children (confer Lenski, ad loc 1 John 3:1, p.449), because His Word accomplishes what it declares. As God’s children, we receive all of His love and all of the other gifts that He is able to bestow upon us, including our partaking of the family meal.
St. John encourages believers to abide in the Lord, and Jesus says that whoever feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him and He in them (John 6:56). In the Sacrament of the Altar, bread is Christ’s Body given for us, and wine is Christ’s blood shed for us. We feed on His flesh and drink His blood, and so we have eternal life, and He will raise us up on the Last Day (John 6:54). And, until then, at the Rail we are united with Him and so also with Gwen and all others who have gone before us in the faith. As the hymn-writer says, “This sacrament God gives us / Binds us in unity, / Joins earth with heav’n beyond us, / Time with eternity” (LSB 639:3).
In the Epistle Reading, St. John tells us to see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called and be children of God now; although what we will be for eternity has not yet appeared, St. John tells us that we know that, when the Lord appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is; and St. John tells us that those who thus hope in the Lord purify themselves as the Lord is pure. That purity first and foremost comes from outside of ourselves, from God: Christ’s righteousness usually is first imparted to us in our baptisms (confer Beckwith, CLD III:152). But, in the context in which today’s Epistle Reading comes, that purity also includes our at least trying not to sin, our seeking what is holy and right, our serving God and our neighbors, thereby giving evidence that we are born of God (for example, 1 John 2:29; confer 2 Corinthians 7:1). And, when we fail so to remain pure, with daily contrition and faith, we return to our baptismal purity, until faith becomes sight at the Lord’s final appearing, whenever that may be.
The saints in their resurrected bodies on the Last Day seeing the Lord as He is in all of His glory—what is the called “the beatific vision”, the vision of the beatified, the blessed—the saints so seeing the Lord in turn glorifies the resurrected bodies of the saints (Pieper, III:550; confer Philippians 3:21; Colossians 3:4). As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:1‑12), perhaps in part the basis for St. John’s Epistle Reading encouragement, Jesus Himself said that the pure (or, “cleansed”) in heart are blessed for they will see God. And so, we will be like Him, not completely like Him, not identical to Him, but somewhat like Him, as it was in the beginning, before humankind’s fall into sin. Only then, on the Last Day, we will be delivered from all evil and filled with great joy (Pieper, II:414 n.33).
Though we do not see the Lord now, we believe in Him and already rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory (1 Peter 1:8). Our hope fixed on Him (NASB) is not a mere wish, but that hope is an unshakable confidence (CSSB, ad loc 1 John 3:3, p.1929). We may look like other people now, but that will not always be the case (Lenski, ad loc 1 John 3:2, p.451). Our loved ones and we may decay, but we will be resurrected. Death is not the end, but death is an enemy defeated by Christ and the gate to life immortal (LSB 490:5). Death is not something to be avoided in fear, but death is something to be welcomed in faith. On the Last Day, as we heard in the First Reading (Revelation 7:2‑17), God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. “See the Love”. Feel the love! Taste the love!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +