Vicar Christopher Gillespie
Immanuel Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Lent 5 Judica (March 8, 2008)
Text: John 8:46-59

03-09-2008 audio

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen.

Children of God, our meditation for this fifth Sunday in Lent (Judica) is taken from the Gospel text, where Jesus is preaching and healing in the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles) is akin to our Thanksgiving albeit seven days long. The dealings between Jesus, the people, and the chief priests and Pharisees during the Feast are spread over a number of chapters in the Gospel of St. John. The thrust of the text is simple: Jesus repeatedly confesses He is the Christ and the Jews reject Him.

The Jews who deny Christ suffer the worst kind of unbelief. They don’t simply reject Christ out of ignorance. They have heard His preaching. They have heard Him say: “I and the Father are one. From me flows streams of living water! My words are the very Word of God! The Father has given me all authority to judge sinners. I come from the Father and will return to His right hand! I am the light of the world! The truth of my teaching will set you free from your sin!”

Jesus Christ, the Word itself speaks to these Pharisees and chief priests and they reject Him outright. They don’t just call him demon-possessed and a Samaritan… they pick up rocks to stone Him. They hate Him and desire to kill him. And all this yet six months before the final Passover celebrated on Maundy Thursday.

Now it is true that from all appearances the Pharisees are faithful. But earlier in John eight Jesus says that they are not children of Abraham, despite their bloodline, their lineage. Jesus says, “If you were Abraham’s children, then you would do the things that Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father [Satan] does.”

For faithful Abraham never trusted in his works above the salvation of God. He always looked forward to Christ who would redeem his people, and who would resurrect the dead on to new life. This is demonstrated so eloquently in our old testament reading from Genesis for Abraham takes his son Isaac to the mountains as he has been commanded, intending to follow the command of God to sacrifice his son. Abraham believes that Isaac will be resurrected from the dead and live eternal life. Abraham does not trust in this life but leaves his son to the hand of God for the next life.

The unfaithfulness of the Pharisees is also demonstrated by their reliance upon a legal code. All their laws and regulations have replaced the promise of the Savior. Rather than put their trust in the hope of the Redeemer, who was promised a of old by God, instead they place their trust in your rights their rituals their practice. While their practice in keeping their festivals once pointed forward towards the kinsman Redeemer, Christ himself, to these Pharisees the feasts have become legal exercises means of remaining in the grace of God.

But such ways of thinking are little different than those in our own midst. We all know people who blatantly reject God’s Word. They reject the authority of Scripture and the Apostolic office instituted to preach this Word. They reject to the means of grace, denying that salvation is present in Baptism or forgiveness of all sins is in the Lord’s Supper.

Christianity is not merely being held on the roster of a congregation. Nor is to be a Christian merely to hold to a set of religious practices like listening to Christian radio and reading the Bible.

The grace of God is not bound to the lawful practices. The grace of God is bound to his son Jesus. And even Jesus himself does not seek glory in his keeping of the law as the Pharisees do. The only one who desires glory is the Father and that glory comes by his gracious sacrifice of his son.

One might be tempted like the Pharisees to place their trust in our hope in the sacrifices of this life and our way of living. But none of these practices are good, right, or salutary unless they are like John the Baptist, who pointed his finger towards Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The writer to the Hebrews said this so well in our epistle text. “When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by the means of his own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.”

You see — the blood of the heifers and the goats purified the flesh of its sins but the blood of Christ is needed to purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. The blood of Christ is needed to change us from Pharisees into Abrahams.

But the unfaith of the Pharisees is even more dramatic than those who stay home from church out of neglect or laziness. The very thing that they accuse Jesus of, demon possession, is the very thing that occupies them. Jesus says right before our reading that because they are unable to hear what he says, they belong to their father, the devil. “Because you belong to Satan”, he says, “you carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth but is a liar and the father of lies.” The Pharisees deny Christ, deny the truth, and so lie to themselves and lie to those around them. And soon they will become murderers… they will send Jesus to the cross.

Those who have hardened hearts deny Christ at every turn and a so to make every attempt to impair the work of the church to prevent their fellow men from joining Christ. But worse than that is that they intend to harm those who follow Jesus like the Pharisees.

It’s one thing to live in sin. But it’s a completely different thing to live in sin and to love said to love the lie to love to murder. That is the kingdom of the hard of heart. That is the kingdom of Satan.

Those who aren’t in attendance of church or who do come only come on Easter and Christmas may not be hard-hearted Pharisees. Those who are delinquent or who come only out of habit may yet return to faith. Their rejection may, by the grace of God, be remedied by the saving message of the Gospel, that is Christ and him crucified.

It is not too late to tell those in your family, your friends, and your neighbors of all that Christ has done for you, when he washed you in his very saving flood in the font, and he purifies you of your sinful rejection of him by his body and blood at the altar. It is not too late to speak of Christ– of his crucifixion and resurrection for the salvation of all who believe. It is not too late to compel them to come and receive Christ’s service for them.

Unbelievers have not passed the point of Christ saving them unless they are hardhearted like the Pharisees or like Pharaoh of old. For when when God performed miracles before Pharaoh’s very eyes, he did not repent of his idolatry and of his unbelief of the one true God of Israel. Instead, he hardened his heart towards God and worse yet persecuted God’s own people. In much the same way the Pharisees of our text not only reject God but intent to do harm to God’s own people and God himself.

God only knows if some of those who are absent today from this Divine Service have hardened their hearts and intend to do harm God’s people. But where there is still a soft spot of soil in the heart of the unbeliever, God’s Word creeps in once again, sprouting forth in faith in our Lord and Savior.

And so we preach in season and out of season. We teach and catechize for the young and the old, the weak and the strong. Here, out of concern for our children and their salvation, we catechize. Next week, our young confirmations will vow to uphold the doctrines of the church, as is expressed in its symbols found in the Small Catechism. The six chief symbols found in the catechism are the 10 Commandments, the creed, the Lord’s prayer, the sacrament of holy baptism, confession, and the Sacrament of the altar.

Confirmation is just another step in our wilderness journey. First we were delivered through the Red Sea waters of baptism. We journey towards the promised land in trust and hope in God our Savior. But along the way God tests our faith. The intent of lifelong catechesis is not merely academic; The very faith most of us received as children depends upon continual instruction. Those who do not continually receive the truth of Scripture, will gradually fall away from trust in Christ and instead move towards trust in their works their actions and their deeds. Their soil may harden and so resist the Word of God.

We Christians rightly fear for those who remain in sin and unbelief. And so I urge you dear brothers and sisters, as we approach the Passion of our Lord, do not be afraid to confess Christ and him crucified publicly before those in your midst, friends, neighbors, or family. Encourage them to trust in God’s service for them.

For those dwelling in unbelief may quickly move into hardened hearts - who refuse to hear the very saving grace of God spoken to them, who will deny the forgiveness of sins, and will deny the resurrection of the dead, and so they condemned to hell.

Fear not the wrath of those around you. You may be met by offense, rejection, or hatred. You may suffer at the hands of hardened hearts. But like Christ, persist in speaking the truth. Pray with the Psalmist: “Vindicate Me, Oh God and defend my cause against ungodly people. From the deceitful and unjust man deliver me. For you are the God in whom I take refuge.”

We have nothing to lose in speaking of the light of the truth of God. We speak those words and let them lead the unfaithful believer to the holy hill and to God’s dwelling — to the very altar of God where they will receive all the benefits of the Lamb of God who was slain. And then once again they will praise God with the lyre and song - praise him for his salvation and in him find their rest in consolation.

Let us pray:

Almighty, merciful, and gracious God the Father, with our whole heart we beseech Thee for all who have forsaken the Christian faith, all who have wandered from any portion thereof or are in doubt or temptation through those who corrupt Thy Word, that Thou wouldest visit them as a Father, reveal unto them their error, and bring them back from their wanderings, that they, in singleness of heart, taking pleasure alone in the pure truth of Thy Word, may be made wise thereby unto everlasting life through faith in Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen. (TLH, p.104)