Ask the Father in My Name: A Meditation on John 16, for the 6th Sunday after Easter

And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see

you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man

taketh from you.  And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall

ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name:

ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time

cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs,

but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. 

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you,

 that I will pray the Father for you:  For the Father himself

loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed

that I came out from God.  I came forth from the Father,

and am come into the world:

again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

The immediate context of this week’s Gospel reading, is Christ addressing His disciples prior to His crucifixion.  Jesus’ disciples were to be witnesses not only of His teachings and life, but also of His betrayal, passion, death, and resurrection.  These disciples Jesus would eventually return to on Easter Sunday and send forth as His Apostles in the power of His Holy Spirit, to preach His Gospel of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to the whole world.  These disciples who would become His Apostles had a special role to play in establishing Jesus’ Church, becoming special and inspired witnesses to Jesus.  We know that their role was unique in the early Church, because in Acts, even the replacement of Judas Iscariot is accomplished by very particular standards… including only those who had been witnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection. 

Throughout the book of Acts, we see Jesus’ direct promise to the disciples fulfilled often.  When the Apostles pray to the Father in Jesus’ Name, often their requests are granted in quick and miraculous ways—healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, and so forth.  But not all the requests of the Apostles were immediately granted.  Remember that even St. Paul, an Apostle who was born out of time, so to speak, prayed that a particular affliction would be removed from him… and God told him, “No—My grace is sufficient for thee.”  Thus we see that among those to whom Jesus offers this promise (Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you) has limits.

To pray in Jesus’ Name is not simply to append His Name to the end of our prayers, like adding an impressive signature to a legal document.  In the ancient world, to speak in another’s name was to speak in their authority or on their behalf—as when a servant or vassal carried the authority of their lord or king.  No one would think that a servant could command his master to do things against his will, since such rebellion by a servant would be wicked and treasonous.  Ambassadors of the king or the local lord had only the authority given to them by their master, and could only speak authoritatively on their master’s behalf when they abided in the proclamation of their delegated authority.  Likewise, Jesus’ Apostles would be sent out in the delegated authority of Jesus, to speak Jesus’ Word of Law and Gospel to all mankind.  According to that Word, abiding in that Word, the Apostles exercised Jesus’ authority and the Father answered them accordingly.  If they stepped outside that Word and asked something not in accordance with the Word and will of their master, the Father had no obligation to honor or grant such a request.  The Apostles’ authority and power flowed through them from Christ and His Word; apart from Christ and His Word, they could do nothing.

While none of us today has the unique role of the first Apostles, not being Jesus’ eye-witnesses of His life, death, and resurrection, the same basic principles apply to us.  When we pray as Christians in Jesus’ Name, we pray in accordance with the delegated authority Jesus has given to us by His Word and Spirit.  When we ask anything of the Father in accordance with Jesus’ will and Word, we have the assurance that He hears us, and will grant us what we ask.  If, however, we pray for things outside or beyond His Word, we have no assurance that our prayer is in accordance with His will, and likewise whether or not the Lord will grant our plea.  For example, when we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we can be sure that the Father will grant that prayer request, because we are praying back to Him by His own Word.  However, when I pray, “Lord, let this cup of suffering depart from me,” I do not know whether or not it is the Lord’s will to grant it.  Like St. Paul, the Lord may respond that His grace is sufficient for me in my suffering, and that it is not His will to remove it from me now.

So what does this mean for the prayer life of the Christian?  It means that we dwell in the assurance of every promise God has made to us in His Word, and that when we pray to the Father in accordance with His Word, we can be sure of His gracious answer.  When we pray for strengthening our faith, He gives it by His Word; when we pray for deliverance from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, He gives it by His Word; when we pray for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, He gives it by His Word; when we pray to be delivered from temptation and the power of the evil one, He grants it by His Word.  All the promises of the Gospel which the Lord Jesus sent His Apostles out to proclaim, we know we have when we pray for them in Jesus’ Name.

But what of the things Scripture does not specifically promise?  While the Lord has promised to hear the prayers of His people for healing, deliverance from temporal suffering or tyrants, or even to move mountains out into the sea, He has not necessarily applied that promise to every individual situation.  In this fallen world, we fallen creatures still face death—should the Lord tarry in His return, there is some disease or injury which eventually will take our lives.  Even so, we pray for each other, and we yield our desires to the will of God, and regardless of His answer, we say in faith, “Amen—let it be.”  If God should provide healing or deliverance, we give Him glory and thanks; if God should withhold healing or deliverance, we give Him glory and thanks that our eternal life and salvation are sure in spite of every temporal persecution.  Whether we live or we die in this world (and chances are, everyone will do both,) we belong to our Savior, who has promised to us life everlasting.

As for prayers for things which go against Christ and His Word, well… we have no confidence in any such prayer at all.  To ask of God that He do things against His will, His righteousness, His love, His mercy—against the Holy Law and Gospel of His Scriptures, and revealed most fully in the person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ—this kind of prayer is a blasphemy against the Name and authority of Jesus.  When we find ourselves praying for such things, we ought to repent of our evil misuse of Jesus’ authority and Name (and our violation of His 2^nd Commandment, to keep His Name holy) and then in faith pray for forgiveness… which is a prayer He is always ready to hear and to grant.

As you examine your life and prayers in light of Christ and His Word, remember what great and wonderful things He gives to you by His Word and His gracious will.  All the unsurpassable and eternal gifts of His Cross are given to you by His Gospel, which transcend all the pain and suffering and death of this fallen world.  As you abide in Christ and His Word, you have all His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation which never end, and the promise of His abiding presence with you throughout your journey in this world.  Rest secure in these unshakable promises, even as you humbly pray for the temporal needs of yourself and your neighbors, giving thanks always to your living and reigning Lord who loves you beyond all measure.  Turning from the darkness of your own fallen will and desires, abide in the Word and will of Christ, where you may ask anything of the Father in Jesus’ Name, and He will give it to you, out of His unfathomable love and compassion for you.  Abide in Christ by faith according to His Word, and you may be sure that Christ abides with you in His saving grace and mercy forever, hearing your prayers, and keeping you in His loving embrace.  Amen.

Repentance Unto Life: A Meditation on Acts 10 & 11

And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, 

John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, 

who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?

When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying,

 Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

In the 10th and 11th chapters of Acts, the story is recounted of the salvation of the Gentile Cornelius and his family.  He was one who sought the true God, rather than the pagan gods of his community.  Somehow he became acquainted with the Word of God through his exposure to the Jews, but like all Gentiles, he was excluded from the Jewish community by their interpretation of the Old Testament Law.  Cornelius had faith in the God whose Word He had heard, fasted and prayed to Him, and His prayers were answered:  God sent to Cornelius an angel, who directed him to send for St. Peter to preach for him the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.

St. Peter was also praying, and received a vision of his own.  With the imagery of a great sheet descending from heaven, God spoke to Peter three times, instructing him not to call anything unclean which God Himself had made clean.  Through reference and allusion to the dietary Laws of Moses, Peter was being prepared to bring the Word of God to the Gentiles.  Not long after Peter's preaching of Christ crucified for the sins of the world brought faith, baptism, salvation, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Gentile house of Cornelius, other Christian brothers of Jewish descent found fault with Peter for having not obeyed their understanding of the Law regarding Gentiles.

Peter recounted for the Church at large what God had done-- how His Word was sent to both Jew and Gentile, giving the same gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  To the awestruck ears of his  brethren he said, "What was I, that I could withstand God?"  The church's response to the Word and works of God was an act of contrition and faith, when they said, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."  With St. Peter the Jewish church came to understand and believe that the gift of salvation was His gift to give, and that He had offered that gift to the whole world.

In the presence of such an awesome gift as repentance unto life, it would do us well to ponder how we respond to it.  Cornelius was not alone among the Gentiles to be converted by this gift, but there were certainly many Gentiles who spurned this gift and remained in their paganism.  Likewise, not all the Jews received God's gift, but some preferred to remain in the darkness of their Pharisaical misinterpretation of Moses.  As God created (and still creates) all mankind, He also in the Person of His Son suffered and died for all mankind, that He might offer forgiveness and salvation to all mankind.  But in the mystery of salvation, God also allows Himself to be rejected by those whom He has created and redeemed, as saving faith and love cannot be coerced-- they must be freely given and freely received, if they are to remain truly faith and truly love.

Even so, the gift of repentance unto life comes to our age and place, as well.  Like every age and place before, there are those who will hear the Word of Christ and abide in it by faith, and those who will reject it in unbelief.  While the Word, and the Holy Spirit who works through the Word, offers the same free gift to all, breathing life into the dead hearts of fallen humanity, God does not remove from every one of us the freedom to either cling to Christ's life through His Word by faith, or to return to the death of unbelief in which He came and sought us.  God comes to give us life abundantly and eternally, but He still gives to us the freedom to choose death.

Such is the old and everlasting gift of repentance unto life in Jesus Christ.  It is the gift of His Law which pierces every false and vain imagination of man, showing to us the vast gulf which exists between the holiness of our Creator and the wickedness of His fallen creation-- a chasm we are unable to cross, traverse, or bridge.  But even more than the gift of His Law which inspires godly sorrow for our own corruption and evil, the gift of His Gospel comes to show us the Savior who crosses that chasm to reach us in our hopeless state.  That Gospel shows us what God has done for us that we could not do for ourselves: giving us life by creating us in His image, redeeming our lives through the Vicarious Atonement of His only begotten Son on the Cross, and sanctifying us in the power of His Holy Spirit unto life everlasting.  It is a Gospel which offers forgiveness and life by His gracious gift, and which can only be received by faith blooming forth in love for God our Savior.  It is a Gospel which calls all people to turn-- to repent-- from those ways of evil and death which would chain us in hell forever, unto a new and everlasting life of faith in Jesus Christ, abiding in Him through His Word and Spirit in the eternal glory of His Kingdom.

In our age and place, there will be those who prefer the darkness of their evil, and who hear the Word of God's call to repentance as infuriating and condescending.  There will be those who ignore it, who despise it, who reject it, and even those who will persecute it.  But that gift of God through His Word still comes to every soul born into His world, offering the same forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who will repent and believe His Gospel.  Thus His Word and gift come to you, of repentance unto life everlasting.  Hear God your savior call you out of your death into the life of His Son.  Believe Him, repent, and live.  Amen.

Take Heed to Yourselves and the Flock: A Meditation on Acts 20 for the 4th Sunday after Easter

 

Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia,

after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,

Serving the Lord with all humility of mind,

and with many tears, and temptations,

which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you,

but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house,

Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks,

repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ…

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock,

over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,

 to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

For I know this, that after my departing

shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.  

Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,

to draw away disciples after them.

Acts 20 begins what could be counted as St. Paul’s beginning of the end of his missionary journeys.  Among other details, he has arrived at Ephesus and gathered together the elders (Greek word underlying the English presbyters, and in the later church divided into what became known as bishops and priests/presbyters, or in some modern Christian circles now known as simply pastors) to give them a final exhortation.  He begins by reminding them of the manner in which he served among them, the Word of God which he faithfully delivered to them, and the duty they had as pastors to continue doing the same.  He also warned them that others would arise from their ranks once Paul was gone—not just from the ranks of the church at large, but specifically from the clergy—who would toss aside the Word of God so as to gather their own disciples by their own perverse teachings.  St. Paul would eventually face imprisonment and martyrdom for his witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the churches which once had the blessing of his presence as he taught them God’s Word, would soon come to have only his written letters and remembered traditions.

The early decades and centuries of the church were constantly plagued by the emergence of false teachers, particularly among the pastors, teachers, and theologians.  Such false teachers gathered disciples to their own cause, setting aside the Word of God given by His Prophets and Apostles in the Old and New Testaments, disrupting the harmony of the broader church and undermining the people’s faith in Jesus as their Savior.  In various times and places, the faithful pastors of the church gathered themselves together and held councils to debate the false teachers, judging their false teachings under the Word of God.  If someone claimed to “remember” or be given some strange doctrine or tradition, all traditions and teachings were judged by God’s Word.  This was the duty of the faithful pastors, to take heed of the flock of God entrusted to their care, and to emulate St. Paul’s (as well as the other Apostles’) model of feeding and tending to them in and through Christ’s Word.  In this way the bishops/presbyters/priests/pastors followed in the Apostolic train, refuting error and faithfully handing on the Gospel to each successive generation.

This same task remains ours today.  1900 years have passed since St. Paul finished his earthly mission, and there have been no lack of false teachers arising to delude and lead astray the flock of God.  Time and again, it is from the ranks of the theologians and scholars, bishops and pastors, that new voices of heresy emerge—voices which call for discarding the Word of God through His Prophets and Apostles wherever it conflicts with their desire, ambition, or prestige. Don’t like God’s perspective on family and sexual ethics?  No worries, there’s a theologian and pastor for you!  Don’t like God’s curbs on your pride, gluttony, covetousness, or greed?  No problem—a prosperity gospel teacher has a place for you!  Don’t like God’s exclusiveness regarding Himself as the only true God and Jesus as the only means of salvation?  Don’t worry your little head about it—there’s a polytheistic universalist in Christian garb with a pew waiting for you, too!  Take a long walk along the social boardwalk, and you’ll find someone hawking whatever you’re looking for… easy answers for your hard situation, custom crafted for your own spiritual path.

Of course, none of those paths or teachers will do you any real good, because apart from Christ and His Word there’s no life, salvation, forgiveness, or hope.  The hucksters who proffer their own opinions as salve for your wounds are no different than the snake oil salesmen of years gone by.  They can’t heal you, because they are as fouled up as you are.  These pompous windbags who can roll out a scroll of degrees and academic accolades, dress in exquisite finery, and talk in a lofty language only their cabal really understand, are just as lost and powerless in the face of sin, death, hell, and the devil as you are.  Because God has taught us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we know that all mankind is incapable of saving themselves from the just fate which awaits them in the eternal fires of perdition.  No man can save himself, and no man’s word can save you, either.  Your problem of death and hell only God can solve, and He’s given that resolution to us through His Word:  the forgiveness of our sins, life and salvation by His grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

That’s the difference between man’s own words, which might gather disciples unto themselves in societies and polities with simply human ends, and the Word of God which calls, gathers, enlightens, enlivens, and sanctifies people unto Himself.  Man’s words might cater to your fallen depravity and selfish proclivities, but God’s Word calls you to repent of your deadly evil and cling to His living Gospel of forgiveness.  And the ends of each couldn’t be more distinct:  man’s words lead inexorably to death and hell, while God’s Word leads to eternal life in His blessed fellowship forever.

If you are a pastor who has become enamored with the words of men, God’s Word calls you to repent and return to the Word of Life, that both you and those who hear you might live.  If you are a lay person who has sought water in the empty wells of false teachers, God’s Word calls you back to the springs of living water He pours out for you without measure.  If you are a Christian who has grown discouraged by the multiplicity of false doctrines and false pastors, God’s Word calls you to take heart in His promise of salvation against which the gates of hell with all their denizens cannot stand.  If you are not a Christian, and stymied by the inconsistent multitude of those who call themselves bishops/priests/presbyters/pastors/chaplains/theologians/teachers/etc., God’s Word calls to you and gives you His objective measure against which all those who presume to teach in His Name are eternally judged.  No matter who you are, your education, your social standing, your age, your race, or any other earthly distinctive, God’s Word calls to you to give you life, joy, peace, and reconciliation with your Creator and your Redeemer.

Jesus the Word spoke to and through the Prophets of the Old Covenant, gathering His people in faithful expectation of His saving work to come on Calvary.  Jesus the Word came and walked among us as the incarnate Son of God, accomplishing for us our salvation through His life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus the Word called and sent His Apostles to bear His Word of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all the world, and has abided with His people by His living Word ever since.  Jesus the Word will come again at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead, gathering those who abide in His Word by faith into life everlasting, and casting those who reject His Word into eternal fire.  From before the Creation and unto timeless ages of ages, Jesus the Word of God is the Alpha and the Omega, our beginning and our end.  He has been the salvation of every soul who has trusted in Him from the foundation of the world, and He is our salvation today, as much as He will be the salvation of every trusting soul who clings to Him by grace through faith to the end of the world.

Take heed to yourselves, and those entrusted to your care:  Jesus the Word has come as our salvation, and there is no other word—no other Name—given under heaven whereby we might be saved.  Hold fast to the Word which holds fast to you.  Repent and believe, that you also may live.  Amen.

Conversion: A Meditation on Acts 9, for the Second Sunday after Easter

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and

slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the

high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to

the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether

they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus:

and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him,

Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said,

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest:

 it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

And he trembling and astonished said,

Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?

And the Lord said unto him,

Arise, and go into the city, and it

shall be told thee what thou must do.

The Church of Christ has seen times like ours before.  Persecutions both perceived and real have been with the Church from its beginning, as those who oppose the Gospel of Jesus Christ seek every means to resist or hinder it.  In our day it is the rising tide of secular humanists in the west who seek to drive the Christian witness from the public square, and in the east a rising tide of Jihadist Islam which moves from suppression of Christians to murdering them en masse.  Some have observed that the 20^th century’s atheist tyrants made it the bloodiest century in recorded human history, and now new Islamist tyrants are on pace to beat their mark in the 21^st.  Whole communities of millions of Christians which have endured since the Apostles planted churches in their respective areas, are now on the brink of extinction.

How does the Church of Christ respond to the oppression and persecution she endures at the hands of unbelievers?  She prays for their conversion.  While God has given the power of the sword to the political government for the preservation of justice, He has given the Keys of His Kingdom to His Church by His Word.  The Sword of the Spirit which the Church wields is not one crafted of iron or steel, but because it is the Eternal Word of Almighty God, it is sharper than any weapon made by man, piercing beyond muscle and bone into heart, mind, and soul.  This Word of God the Church bears in the Holy Scriptures contains such power because its origin is the Incarnate Word of God Jesus Christ, and its proclamation goes out in His Name by the wonder-working power of His Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, the scourges of our time are being met by churches that have lost their confidence in the Word of God.  Church bodies and fellowships across various traditions have yielded one after another before the seductive lies of so-called Higher Criticism, handing over their faith to liberal scholars who dismiss the witness of Holy Scripture, recasting Jesus into various humanist constructs, and removing from the people any authoritative witness to His Gospel.  Churches which have allowed themselves to wallow in the pride of submitting Holy Scripture under their critical analysis have declared the miraculous works of a holy God to be fanciful myths, at best left to us by misguided misogynists of antiquity for some general moral guidance.  Such churches have been shriveling and dying for the better part of a century, decaying from the inside out as they deny the Means of Grace which originally gave them life.  They have become fat, blind, and lethargic by their partnership with an unbelieving world system, little more than political lap dogs to be manipulated and used to bark on queue for their masters.  They may bear the outward marks of a Christian fellowship, but they have denied the Christ who is part and parcel with the Scriptures they cast aside.

From such a vacuum of biblical fidelity several odd realities have emerged.  Honest Christians, deceived by the liberal lies of an unbelieving academy, look elsewhere for how to build Christ’s Church and convert our persecutors.  They dream that music might be able to manipulate the heathen into Christ’s camp, so they craft endless variations on praise bands and stage craft to make their churches “seeker sensitive.”  Having lost confidence in the Word of God, they hope that if their church looks, sounds, and feels like the pagan world at large, they will woo pagans into the church.  Sadly, such churches often become greater aggregations of unbelieving pagans, since the Word of God has been replaced by lesser human things.  Even if they are successful in gathering stadiums full of swaying and singing participants, if they are gathered around something other than Christ and His Word, they are not in any real sense His Church.  A pagan in Christian garb or standing in a Christian locale is still a pagan.

The Easter hope of Christ’s people does not lie in liberal scholars, who puff up their own credentials for the sake of their own personal pride, while belittling and despising the Word of God.  It does not lie in the praise band, the sound board engineer, the light show coordinator, the ntertainment consultants, or the gimmicks of non-biblical sermon series.  It does not lie in the secular weapons of a political state, whose fallen ambitions are twisted toward their own power and wealth to be lavishly spread within their inner cabal.  The hope of Christians has never been a human construct, plan, or strategy; rather, it has always been, and shall always be, the grace of God Almighty.

In the beginning, before human beings or any other creature walked the earth, it was the grace of God through His Word which brought all things into existence, without any assistance or contrivance of man.  After our first parents’ Fall into sin and death, it was the grace of God through His Word which gave the promise of salvation to be accomplished by the suffering of His Messiah yet to come.  Through the millennia in which His people waited, it was the grace of God through His Word which gave His people faith to look forward to their Messiah, and to endure the rising and falling of evil empires and false prophets.  At the moment of Jesus’ conception in the blessed Virgin Mary, it was the grace of God through His Word which brought forth the Incarnation of His Son, apart from any human work or machination.  At the Cross of Calvary, it was the grace of God through His Word nailed to a tree where the Vicarious Atonement of all mankind was accomplished, even as men and devils fought their hardest to oppose Him.  At that first Easter morning, it was the grace of God through His Word which showed forth the defeat of sin, death, hell, and the devil by the resurrection of His Only Begotten Son.  On the days which followed, it was the grace of God through His resurrected Word which called and gathered His scattered disciples, gave to them His Holy Spirit, and sent them out as His Apostles to preach His Gospel of salvation to all who would repent and believe in Jesus.

Just as the Word of God Incarnate came and converted the murderous heart of Saul, so that he might become the greatest missionary in the history of the world, so too has the Word of God come to you, giving your cold dead heart a new life of faith in His grace.  God’s Word of grace in Jesus Christ is as much the sure hope of your salvation, as it is for every other soul under heaven.  The people of God do not cast about for some other savior or some other word, when our Savior and His Eternal Word are given to us in grace and mercy beyond measure.  God’s Word not only gave existence to the world and sustains it unto the Last Day, but it continues to be the conversion and salvation of all who hear and believe Him.

O little flock, do you see the rising tides of demonic hordes upon the hills, hiding behind their masks of false politics and false religions, gathering to surround the City of God?  Do you see them with their awful weapons, their dark intrigues, and their wicked hearts bent on your destruction?  Do you see the king of hell arrayed in his earthly splendors, surrounded by his sycophantic slaves who think to quench the light by their darkness?

Rise up, O Christian, in the irresistible power of God’s Eternal Word!  Rise up in the Easter glory of your Risen Savior, who has defeated every enemy of His Kingdom and His people by His Cross.  Rise up in the faith given to you by His Word and Spirit, that through you His light might dispel all darkness and gloom.  Rise up, O Children of God, in the power of His grace which He has bequeathed to all His sons and daughters, that they might be dauntless in the face of both life and death, because their hearts cling steadfastly to Jesus’ eternal life.  Rise up out of your earthly grave of unbelief and despair to stand unflinching and unbending before the gaudy king of hell, whose kingdom your Lord and your God has already plundered.

Rise up in the Word and Spirit which calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and enlivens you both now and for eternity—and you shall see that same Word and Spirit convert the hateful hearts of our persecutors into our fellow brothers and sisters in light everlasting.  Rise up!  For your Easter is proclaimed before heaven and earth by the Word of God your Risen Savior.  Let your doubt fall away, and be girded in triumphant faith and humble repentance for the battle already won in Jesus.  Arise, O saints of God, in the power of His Eternal Word to stand stalwart in Jesus’ Easter victory, proclaiming in fearless faith before all the world His Gospel for the conversion and salvation of souls.  His Kingdom and His Word are yours, O Child of God—Arise! 

Amen.