That the World May Know: A Meditation on John 17, for the last Sunday in Easter

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, 

and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name 

those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: 

those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, 

but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, 

that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, 

because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, 

but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

As thou hast sent me into the world, 

even so have I also sent them into the world.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, 

that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 

which shall believe on me through their word;

That they all may be one; 

as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 

that they also may be one in us: 

that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

There is an abiding truth revealed in John 17 which rings throughout Holy Scripture and down through the ages, when Jesus offers prior to His Passion what is commonly known as His High Priestly Prayer:  truth and love bring forth unity in God, while evil and deception bring forth division in the world.  The unity which Jesus prays for before heading to His Cross, is a unity with God through His Word, in which the Author of Life lives in His people by faith, working in love toward one another.  Jesus knew that He was going to reconcile the world to the Father through His sacrifice on Calvary, so that as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, all those who believe and live in Jesus would be one with God and one with each other.  This unity would be born of the Spirit working through Jesus' Word, binding everyone together in the Father with a common faith, hope, and love which could not be broken for all eternity.  This is eternal life-- to know God through His Word, to keep His Word, and to abide in His Word, fully united to the Holy Trinity and to all those who are also united in Him.

Unlike the world, God's unity isn't born of clubs, associations, political gatherings, or social groups.  It doesn't have charters and constitutions and by-laws, nor does it require lawyers and politicians to promulgate it.  There are no team jerseys, no bureaucrats, no corporate headquarters and branch offices.  It's not bound to geography, race, gender, affluence, or affinity group.  Unlike all the forms of unity fallen men attempt to create in a fallen world through power, intrigue, corruption, coercion, and persecution, God's unity comes by His Word.  The Word of God has been at work since before the foundation of the world, in perfect harmony with the Father and the Spirit from eternity to eternity.  It was through this Word that the world and universe was created, and all things were created to abide within the Word, even as all things will be judged on the Last Day by the same Word.  This Word who spoke through the Prophets of ancient antiquity, became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and moved through His Apostles to draw all people to Himself.  This Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ, we know and believe through the Word He has written in His Scriptures through His Prophets and Apostles, a Word kept and believed by His people from the dawn of time and will be carried forward in faith until the end of time.

As the Church finishes her Easter season and prepares for the long rigors of Pentecost, it is good for her people to remember once again what has always brought them unity with God and with each other.  Our unity is not found in our ethnicities, our geographies, our politics, or our sects; rather it is found where it is always found, by grace through faith in Christ alone, who is the Eternal Word of the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever.  This One True God has revealed Himself to the world through His Word, and His people have been gathered together in that Word, that as the Father and the Son are One, so too by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word, the people might be one with each other as they have been made one with God.  This unity is not made by men, but by God Himself, as the Author of life, love, truth, and beauty calls all people to abide in Him by faith in His Word, turning away from the dark and divisive ways of death.  In such abiding and living faith comes the grace of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation, united to God and our neighbors with a love that endures forever.

Do the divisions of the world and the Church discourage you, where politics and power and evil machinations seem the rule of life?  Do the various clothing and customs of particular sects cause you alarm, when one says to another that their local eccentricities must be the norm of all?  Do you grow frustrated that clerics in pointy hats and fine vestments, sitting in great halls built upon the treasures of the poor, rule on the terms of membership and unity based on subservience to their leaders and whims?  Be of good cheer, for what fallen men cannot do through their darkened powers, God has already done through the Vicarious Atonement of His Son.  It is God who made the world, who sustains the world, who redeemed the world, and who will judge the world on the Last Day-- and it is He who has called all the world to Himself through His Word, that all might believe and have eternal life through His Son.  The evil shadows of men's compelled, coerced, or manipulated unity hold no candle to the brilliance of true unity born of God and His Word.  There in the fellowship of His Word we find the true unity given to us in our Baptism, confessed in our Creeds, eaten and drunk in Holy Communion, breathed over us in Holy Absolution, and lived out together in faith, hope, and love.  There in the unity born of Christ and His Word, God's people live forever in the power of His Holy Spirit, bound together across time and space without end.

If the divisions of our world and Church have left you despairing and broken, return to the font of true unity, where your soul is refreshed in the infinite grace of your loving and saving God, and where you will find the unity you seek with all those who likewise abide in the Eternal Word of Christ.  By the Word we are called to fellowship and unity, and by the Word we are sent to call everyone into the same unity of faith, hope, and love which only Christ Jesus can give to a dying and broken world.  As a sanctified body united in Christ and His Word, we become a witness to the world of His truth, beauty, life, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation, that all might repent, believe, and live in Him forever.  It is beyond time that the people of God stop trying to create their unity by their own fallen means, and return to the unity which God creates through the Word of His Son.  Only there will the world see in the people of God the witness Christ sends His people out into the world to be, and only in the unity of His Word is there life for everyone, forever more.  Amen.

To Love God: A Meditation on John 14

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, 

he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, 

and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

While the way people speak of love in this world varies widely, Jesus speaks very directly about what true love is.  It is not selfish, coarse, or rude; it is not harmful, abusive, or domineering; it is not forced, compelled, or coerced.  Unlike so many expressions of what people call love, the love of God is pure, holy, and beautiful, with sacrifice and humility for the good of the other.  While people speak of what they deserve and demand from those they love out of hubris and conceit, God calls quietly and peacefully to everyone who will hear Him without the full display of His omnipotent grandeur.  Unlike the lies people tell one another to woo and deceive each others' affections, God speaks in truth with gentleness and compassion unfeigned.  In the Gospel reading from John 14 for this Sunday, Jesus invites us to understand the distinction of divine love which surpasses all expressions of fallen man's concepts of love.

To begin, we must remember that God's love is inextricably wound up in His Word.  His Law, as the Ten Commandments summarize and which Jesus Himself explains, is a law of love-- love of God for who He is, and love of our neighbors for who they are, created like us in God's image.  The Law which God breathes out in creation and which holds the universe together is at its foundation a reflection of the love and truth God is within Himself, eternally lived out in the unity of His Holy Trinity.  It is not God who left man, but man who left God, when Adam and Eve were deceived into rejecting the perfect Law of love and fell into corruption and death-- a fall which has contaminated and twisted every one of their children ever since.  It is our fallen corruption as a human race which often fails to see love for what it really is, and therefore perceives God's Law as a holy terror which convicts us of our own lack of love.  It is most certainly true that God's Law is good, and righteous, and true, even though it has become for us a divine mirror which shows us how far we have fallen from our created image in God.

And yet, God's love for us does not stop with the truth of His Law.  Instead, His love reaches out beyond His Law with compassion and mercy to all those who have fallen away from Him, by sending His Only Begotten Son to be among us as one of us, to suffer with us, die with us, and rise again that we might rise together with Him.  This love of God which seeks and saves the lost is a Gospel love which satisfies the justice of His Law, and reaches out with grace and mercy to all who will turn and believe in Him.  This is a Gospel which speaks a Word greater than the condemnation of the Law's holy mirror, with forgiveness, life, and salvation for everyone by grace through faith in Jesus.  This love of God is a Word of life, of hope, and of reconciliation to all who will trust in Him.  It is a commandment and a decree, written in the most holy blood of Jesus Christ, crucified, died, and risen for the sins of the whole world.  It is a Word alive with His all powerful Spirt, working miracles of resurrection and life through the waters of Holy Baptism, the bread and wine of His Holy Supper, the Absolution given to the penitent sinner, and the bold preaching of the Holy Scriptures with Christ as their source and summit.  It is a Word which gives what it promises, accomplishing the ends for which the Lord of Glory has sent it out int the world.

Thus we hear Jesus teach His disciples what it is to love God and to live in the love of God:  keep His Word.  The underlying Hebrew idiom which informs the Greek translated to the English word "keep," is a concept more literally rendered "guard," "defend," or "preserve."  The Word of God, His commandments given in both Law and Gospel which reflect His divine love for His people and His whole creation, which become incarnate in His Son, is the Word of love by which we live, and move, and have our being.  This love of God is found in His commandments to love Him for who He is and our neighbors made in His image, just as it is found by grace through faith in the vicarious atonement of sinners for Christ's sake alone.  By this Word we know the love of God for us, and abiding in this Word by faith, we show forth our love of God.

It is in this guarded and kept Word of love that we find God manifest to each and every repentant soul.  Here in His Word does He reveal Himself as mankind's Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, just as He reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Here in His Word does the Father send forth His Son to reconcile the world to Himself, and here in His Word does the Father and Son send forth the Spirit to work saving faith and repentance in the hearts of all who hear and believe.  By this Word does Jesus enliven cold, dead, and broken hearts, raising them to new life from above which can never die.  By this Word does the King of all creation come to you, calling you to the eternal embrace of His love, and into the endless fellowship of all His holy saints and angels who dwell in His light.

While the dark and sinful world has spent much of its history and even its present, rejecting, despising, and ridiculing this Word of life and love, still it comes to you today.  Have you been bruised and broken by the lying words of sinful men, who despite their silver tongues and well tailored clothes, gave you empty promises and an empty soul?  Have you despaired of preachers who speak with vanity and vapidity, who fill the Church of God with the chaotic echoes of their own delusional ambitions?  Have you heard all the broken promises, all the false gospels, all the social improvement programs, and lost hope in the wisdom of man?  Be of good cheer, for to you comes the Eternal Word of God's love and salvation which will never tarnish, never be broken, and never fail.  To you, drowning in the syrupy sweet manipulations of evil men who seek to use you, despoil you, and defraud you, comes a Word of free and everlasting grace-- of forgiveness and reconciliation which was earned for you by Jesus alone, and which He gives freely to all who will trust and abide in Him by faith.

Hear the Word of Christ come to you in both His Law and Gospel, that you might be found in Him.  Leave behind the empty promises of vain men, cloaked in self-congratulating peacockery and prancing about the world like delusional escapees of a mental ward, and receive instead God's Word of truth, love, simplicity, and beauty.  Let the shadows and lies of a fallen world recede from your sight, that you might see Jesus incarnate, crucified, risen, and returning for you.  Hear the Word of Jesus call you into His fellowship, where in love He manifests Himself to all who abide in Him, and guard the Word of love He has given them in His Holy Scriptures.  Hear Him today, believe, and live.  Amen.

A Place for You: A Meditation on John 14

A Place for You:  A Meditation on John 14

Let not your heart be troubled: 

ye believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father's house are many mansions: 

if it were not so, I would have told you. 

I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, 

I will come again, and receive you unto myself; 

that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.  

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; 

and how can we know the way?

Jesus saith unto him, 

I am the way, the truth, and the life: 

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

As Jesus prepared for His Passion, He also prepared His disciples for the eventuality that He would not be among them in the same way He had been previously.  Soon, Jesus would be seized by the Pharisees and Sadducees, condemned in a mock trial on trumped up charges by false witnesses, handed over to a corrupt pagan governor, beaten and scourged to the point of death, then crucified for all to see on Mount Calvary.  To ensure He was truly dead before handing His body over to be buried, a Roman guard would pierce His heart with a spear, such that blood and water poured forth-- a sure sign of cardiac death.  He would be placed in a new tomb to lay among the dead, where all the dead were expected to stay.  Then He would rise from the dead on the third day, triumphant victor over sin, death, hell, and the grave, proclaim the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to everyone who would repent and believe in Him, send out His disciples as Apostles to the ends of the earth carrying with them the Keys of His Kingdom, then ascend into heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father until He would come again in glory to judge the living and the dead at the final Resurrection on the Last Day.  Knowing all this, Jesus prepared His disciples for the new reality they were about to enter into, which would be very different than they had experienced living, conversing, eating, and drinking with Him.  

Jesus was preparing to finish His work of salvation for the whole world and return to His Father, which He knew that despite His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, His disciples would experience as a kind of departure.  To reassure them that He was not abandoning them, He promised them that He would come to bring them to where He would be in His Father's Kingdom, and that He was preparing a place for them there.  Of course, as fallen human beings, the disciples had never seen the Kingdom of God in all its glory, nor did they understand how one would arrive in the Father's Kingdom.  There were no roads, no maps, no stories handed down by the Prophets about how to rise up to where God is-- and the only two people recorded in Scripture of having suddenly made that journey (Enoch and Elijah) didn't do so by their own power, but rather were whisked up by God.  Thus Jesus had to teach His disciples that the way to the Father's Kingdom would always be Him, because Jesus would always be the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Jesus alone, as the Son of God and the son of Mary, forever uniting in Himself both the divine and human natures, is the only Eternal Word of the Father which reconciles a fallen world to holy God.  Jesus alone is the Truth and the Way which lead to eternal Life, and in Him alone is the promise of a place forever in the beautiful glory of His Kingdom.

Like the disciples, Christians in every age have needed to learn this lesson in order to finish their work in this world with joy, peace, and hope.  Each of the disciples had to cling to this promise of salvation in Jesus alone as they struck out into a dark and dangerous world, carrying with them their witness to the Gospel which had saved them-- and would save all who would repent and believe.  After Jesus' Ascension into heaven, the disciples trusted in the enduring presence of Jesus among them by His Holy Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments, creating faith and forgiving sins, and calling everyone to eternal life.  Even as the disciples worked, suffered, sacrificed, and were persecuted in their proclamation of the Gospel, they knew that their Savior not only abided with them by His Word and Spirit, but that He had already gone to prepare an eternally abiding place for them in His Father's Kingdom.  They knew by faith in the Word and Person of Jesus, that even if they had no abiding place in this fallen world, they would always have a place in His Kingdom.  Such confidence strengthened them, and generations after them, to rise above the calamities and sufferings of their times and places, to live as pilgrims on their way to eternal homes in glory, loving all they would meet along the way, and calling everyone to join them at Jesus' table.  Trusting in this Gospel promise of Jesus, His people have been able to live by grace through faith in Him alone, seeing the troubles of this present age through the lens of eternity, and knowing that despite all the unpredictable shifting sands of this world, they have a place that abides forever.

If the world has beaten you down, and left you feeling that you have no place and don't fit in, be of good cheer-- the Lord of Glory who created you, has prepared a place for you with Him.  While the world makes up its own capricious rules for who is in and who is out, who is popular and who is despised, who is powerful and who is oppressed, Jesus calls everyone to Himself by the same free gift of grace, offered by the same faith in His Eternal Word, and with the same promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who will trust and live in Him.  To you He comes with the promise of restoration and reconciliation, and for you He has prepared a place in His Father's house.  Hear His Word of life come to you this day, that you might turn from the empty paths which lead only to darkness and despair, and instead abide in the light of His grace, mercy, and love forever.  Amen.

Shepherds, Thieves, and Hirelings: A Meditation on John 10

Then said Jesus unto them again, 

Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. 

All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: 

but the sheep did not hear them.  

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, 

and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:

 I am come that they might have life, 

and that they might have it more abundantly.

I am the good shepherd: 

the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.  

But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, 

whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, 

and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: 

and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.  

The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, 

and careth not for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd, 

and know my sheep, and am known of mine.  

As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: 

and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: 

them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; 

and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Jesus began a series of parables in John 10 which introduced themes common in Old Testament Scripture, and common to the lives of the people to whom He was speaking.  Not only were shepherds a common sight in ancient Israel, managing the flocks and herds which were vital to the lives and livelihoods of many, but two of the greatest icons of the Old Testament were also shepherds-- Moses and King David.  The Prophets, including Moses in the Pentateuch and David in the Psalms, reflect on God as the Good Shepherd of Israel who seeks and saves His people, and Jesus helps the people understand that all these images and shadows were pointing to Him.  Jesus was the Good Shepherd who was always seeking and saving the people throughout their history, and He was incarnate before them to fulfill that salvation through His life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus was, and is, the Good Shepherd who cares for His people so much that He lays down His life to save them, standing between them and the satanic horde of wolves who would devour them, rising victorious over every enemy of His people, and securing for them forgiveness, life, and salvation which He freely gives to them by His grace.  Thus Jesus' people have always lived by His grace through faith in Him, and He has always been the Good Shepherd who comes to give eternal life to all who will repent and trust in Him.

Conversely, Jesus also warns that there have been, and will continue to be until the end of time, Thieves and Hirelings.  Thieves were common enough in ancient times as they are in modern times, always angling to take from someone else the things they desire.  Thieves seek to take what is not theirs, often destroying the rightful owners in the process.  Unlike the Good Shepherd's selfless and sacrificial love which pours out grace, mercy, and life freely for all, the thief instead seizes and takes for himself that which he desires, stealing, killing, and destroying wherever he goes.  Such thieves are symbolic of the devil and demonically inspired men, who outwardly may appear righteous, respectable, and well dressed, but inside they are ravenous to devour the resources of whomever they meet.  Their feet are swift to shed blood, and there is no end to their appetite for destruction, whether they be petty and clumsy at their craft, or sophisticated and powerful.  We can see them rise and fall in the history of society and the church, just as we can walk into any dark ally on the rough side of town, and see them lurking in the shadows.  Such thieves are dangerous, and Jesus warns the people to steer clear of them.

The other category Jesus introduced was that of the hireling-- a person who does his job only for the money.  Surely there is nothing evil in workers receiving the wages of their labors from those for whom they labored, but Jesus wants to draw a distinction between himself and those who work for hire.  Jesus was not in the world to receive wages for saving it.  He is God Almighty, seated forever at the right hand of His Father's majesty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever.  There is nothing made which was not made by Him, through Him, and for Him.  There is no compensation which He requires, as He holds all things in the palm of His omnipotent hands.  Jesus comes and gives to His people what they need, not because He needs anything from them, but because His love for them impels Him to offer His gifts of grace freely.  Jesus was not and is not a hireling, but the people to whom He spoke certainly knew what hirelings were.  They also knew that what was good and just in the fields, paying the laborers the full measure of their hire, was an abomination when applied to the things of God.  God's grace could not be bought, even if a person could offer the whole universe in exchange for it.  And the people knew what it was to have hirelings serving in God's temple who were there just for the money, whose primary purpose was to make a living from the work of distributing God's grace to the people.  We have seen them in the church throughout her history, too-- where pastors and even whole fellowships think of the Office of Word and Sacrament (which Jesus instituted in His own image for the proclamation of His Gospel,) as a profession to which they are hired, and from which they are to receive their hireling wages.  In Jesus' time as is now, such mercenaries are an unstable and undependable lot, who when the going gets tough, abandon the people in their care to save their own lives, resources, prestige, and careers from the ravenous wolves at the door.  Unlike Jesus, hirelings in the pastoral office make a business of the holy church, buying and selling the Bride of Christ like finely dressed pimps.

Of course, Jesus does not leave His people to simply suffer and be despoiled at the hands of thieves and hirelings.  In every age, He raises up from among His people those who will care for them according to His saving Word, offering freely the gifts of grace, mercy, life, and salvation which He purchased for them by His Cross.  While we may see thieves and hirelings all around us, Jesus gives us His Word which unmasks them and puts them to flight, so that His people of every time, tribe, race, and place, might know that there is really only one flock, and one Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, that they might have life in eternal abundance.  Even while thieves and hirelings multiply, Jesus still raises up servants from among His people to distribute His gifts just as freely as they were received.  Even today, Jesus still shepherds His people, and gives to them everything they need.

Hear the Word of the Lord come to you this day.  Are you a thief, who has made havoc in the house of God, stealing what was not yours, and leaving broken people in your wake?  Repent-- and be reconciled to Christ, lest your eternity be cast into endless flame.  Are you a hireling, who has made the people of God your business, and yourself a prostitute in holy garb?  Repent-- be reconciled to Christ, lest your destiny be lost in the same perdition of all unrepentant human traffickers.  Are you one who has been wounded by the thieves and hirelings who abandoned and abused you in times of trial, attacked and torn by the wolves they so carelessly allowed to maul you?  See them for what they are by the Word of Christ, and find safer pasture in the care of the Shepherd who will never abandon or abuse you.  Hear the Word of Jesus come to you, that you may turn away from the thieves and the hirelings, and find rest for your souls under the care of Him who always sought to save you, and will forever stand between you and the howling darkness.  Return to the Good Shepherd who has given His life for you, that you might have joy, peace, love, and life forever more.  Hear Him.  Believe, and live.  Amen.