Jubilate Thursday - Devotion in Exile
Lection for Jubilate Thursday
Today's devotion is the first sermon (unedited) I preached when I
did a series on the Divine Service. It has as the context what is referred to
as the "Preparatory Service." I pray that it is educational, helping
you to be more focused in worship when next you gather in God's house. (As it
is unedited, it will read a bit differently, for it was intended to be the
preached Word.)
Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Today’s
message is going to be more like a Bible Study. In the past, we have done a
narrative Divine Service where I would explain a portion of the Divine service,
and then we do it. Today will be a bit different. We are going to look at the
first portion of the Divine Service and why we do what we do. It is my prayer
that you will begin to develop an even deeper appreciation of what we do during
the service, and see it as the rich blessing from God that it truly is. It is
not our doing, nor our work for God, but it is first His work for us and to us
– only then do we respond. Our responses are only His Word of promise to us, repeated
back to Him.
Our
hymn does not really begin the service, it is more a prelude to it – if you
consider the text, it will reflect either the theology of the invocation, or
begin to set the theme of the day, based upon the Scripture lessons appointed.
Whose
house are we in this morning? God’s house! We are gathered together for the
family meal at His request and invitation. We are gathered to receive wonderful
gifts from Him. God’s name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the use of the
sign of the holy cross, were first spoken and used upon each of us in our
baptism. These words confess that this God calls His people together by Word
and Sacrament. It is His name we share – we are his family in Christ. Those
words are confused when good-intentioned ministers pervert the invocation by
adding the words, "We make our beginning" to the invocation. It is
not we who begin, but it is God who begins a good work in us.
We
come together not because of what we have done, but because of what God has
done to us. He calls us through His Holy Spirit, for it is His Spirit which
calls us, gathers us together, and enlightens us with His holy gifts. It is
this Spirit which keeps us in Christ, for it is the Spirit who works faith in
us as we hear the Word of Christ and receive Christ’s body and blood. It is by
these gifts we are granted forgiveness – covered in the holiness and purity of
Christ, whereby His righteousness becomes ours.
When
we gather together then, while we pray that non-Christians be present so that
they might hear of the wonderful works of God, our gathering together for
corporate worship is primarily a family gathering. You and I have been united
to Christ, we are one body with Him, joined to our Lord by the Holy Spirit’s
work in baptism – buried with Christ and raised with him as a new creation in
Him. Each time those words are spoken, we remember that God called us by name
with those words and made us His own.
Following
the invocation is the Confession and Absolution. Even when you come home, what
do parents often tell you before you come into the house? “Take off your
shoes!” Or, at the very least, “Wipe your feet!” When the Lord saw that Moses turned aside to look (at the burning bush), God
called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said,
“Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your
sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground.”
You
are the family gathered in your Father’s house. You are on holy ground! You
cannot sit at the dinner table filthy and unclean. So, it is time to remove
that which is most filthy. When someone came to the home of another, there were
no paved roads or cement sidewalks, walking was a dusty undertaking. The
filthiest part of a person was their feet. Jesus even washed his disciple’s
feet on Holy Thursday before He instituted the Lord’s Supper.
Our
baptismal life is one of daily contrition and repentance; a life of daily
sorrow for our sins, a desire to amend our sinful life, and trust that in
Christ Jesus our sins are forgiven – totally and completely gone.
We
gather then to be in that continual repentance. In John’s first letter, we
learn the importance of confession and absolution. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth
is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)
Jesus
also tells His disciples that He will give them the authority to forgive sins.
Do you remember the scene? He had asked them who did the people say that He
was. Then He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not
reveal this to you, but My
Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are
Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will
not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:15-19)
That
authority to forgive and retain sins was purchased when Christ gave His perfect
and holy life unto death upon the cross. And when He arose on the third day,
one of His first priorities was to give those whom He was sending out as His
ministers, the authority to forgive sins – the authority to pronounce
forgiveness.
It
was that first Easter evening when it took place. So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said
to them, “Peace
be with you.” And when He had said this,
He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when
they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you;
as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when
He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive
the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them;
if you retain the sins of any,
they have been retained.” John 20:19-23
Christ’s
command is to forgive sins. It is His blood which covers all sin and cleanses
the baptismal robe and makes it white in the blood of the Lamb. And it happens
when the pastor speaks the very Word that Christ commanded He speak by Christ’s
own blood bought authority.
Dear
friends in Christ, do you understand the riches of God’s grace showered upon
you in the first couple minutes of the Divine Service? You are again reminded
of your baptism, where God called you by name and made you His own. You are
blessed to make the sign of the Holy Cross, a remembrance of the price paid by
God’s own Son to purchase you as His very own.
You
are invited by God to bring before Him all your sins. He wants them, not so He
can punish you for them – for the punishment they deserve has already been
meted out upon another, One more holy and righteous than you – He wants you to
confess them so that He can lift the burden of them from your heavy heart.
Jesus encourages you, “Come to Me, all who are weary and
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon
you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28-29)
This
is not time for you to come before God as if it is a time to give Him
something, as if we had anything that He needs. This is the time and the place
where those who are weary with the trials and tribulations of life come to find
rest and peace. This is a time of rest and refreshment in our wilderness
journey of this earthly life. Here in this house is where the children come to
be comforted and blessed by the gifts of their heavenly Father, given in the
work of Christ, and sealed in us by the Holy Spirit.
It
is again friends, a glorious day to gather together with our family and hear
Christ’s work applied to us. What a gracious and loving God we have who speaks
to us words of forgiveness, words which grant salvation and bestow life eternal.
Thanks be to God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
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