Exaudi – Sunday 12 May A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 27:7a, 8, 9a;27:1, 11a, 12;47:8;St. John 14:18a, 28b, 16:22b
✠ Lection: Ezekiel 36:23a, 23c-28;1 Peter 4:7b-11;St. John 15:26—16:4a
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As the Lord Jesus prepared His disciples in John 15 and 16 for His death, resurrection, and ascension, He likewise prepares us by His same blessed words. We see that after His ascension, the eternal kingdom that He establishes comes by the sending of the Holy Spirit to us, the third Person of the Holy Trinity, Who bears witness to Jesus and to all that He has done to redeem us. Those to whom The Spirit comes likewise bear witness to Jesus ourselves, for such is characteristic of every Christian’s life. The preparation by the words of the Word made flesh, our Savior Jesus Christ, is spoken to us that we should not be made to stumble, for there have been, are, and will continue to be until the end, many things, many situations, many people that will seek to drive us from the one true faith. But our gracious crucified, resurrected, and ascended Lord has told us these things, that when times come in which we suffer because we believe in Jesus, we may remember that He told us of them.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one divine essence. Together, the blessed Trinity has one divine will when it comes to God’s Kingdom upon the earth, and that is the exaltation of Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of the Father, ever-pointed to by the Spirit, because the incarnate Son is the One in Whom our sins are forgiven. There is no other Name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved, for that Name belongs to the eternal Son of God Who was made Man, was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again for our salvation. It is this Good News, this Good Shepherd to Whom the Spirit bears witness by calling us to behold and believe Him to be true. A life that bears witness to Christ is one that truly perseveres.
Those who come to see and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of living God, that He has redeemed us from the eternal death of our sins, we become witnesses with the Holy Spirit, as those indwelt by the Holy Spirit; witnesses to the greatness of God’s love for man. How is such bearing witness carried out in our lives then? For sure, it includes telling others of the news that we ourselves consider to be good. Witnesses tell of what they have seen and heard themselves. They testify, thus Christians testify of the goodness of the One Who has saved them from sin, death, and the devil. If Jesus is for us what we believe that He is, then desiring that others know about Him, hear about Him, and come to love Him the same, is a part of a life that bears witness to Christ by testifying, by bearing witness to Him to those who yet believe. But that is not all, for the entire life that we live confesses to Whom we belong and what we truly believe about Him. What we do with the lives we’ve been given, especially as those who now have new life in Christ, our lives bear witness to both our Savior and to what we think of Him and His ways of righteousness. What is He to us? The answer is reflected in all that we are, in all that we think, say, and do, for He has redeemed us in our entirety, so that we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. We bear witness to Christ in the things we say, in the things we watch, in the things we buy, in the things we listen to, in what we think, in how we treat one another, in how we give, to others and to the church, not only monetarily, but also of our time and our talents. We bear witness to Christ in how we treat the Lord’s Day and His blessed Divine Service where the Holy Spirit bears witness to Christ to us so that we grow in faith; so that we endure all that comes with the times, confident in the Lord and His goodness toward us when all times come, good, bad, and ugly.
His good words are proclaimed here for us on so many beautiful levels and ways, all of which bless our souls, for by the Spirit’s work within us through them, we are continuously prepared and strengthened so that we should not be made to stumble. This symbolic imagery makes use of the idea of either our own clumsiness causing us not to correctly put one foot in front of the other or of an outside influence causing us to fail to walk well in this life. Christ’s words are here for us, so that we are prepared here for the daily onslaught of evil, so that we, too, do not become conformed to it, by stumbling and falling into a life of sin as is the way of the world. It is our good Lord Who keeps us on our way. A life that has little concern about or resistance to the ways of that non-Christians live is likely to be much deeper in the world’s current than in God’s. It is against this that our gracious Lord prepares us by His presence, by His words, by His gifts, by His divine service ever to keep us.
He has ascended and yet is with us even to the end of the age in the very ways He has given so that we do not sin, so that we do not get caught up in the current of the world and become indistinguishable from unbelievers, so that we may stand in all times of evil, persecution, and even death, which try to rob us of Him and Him of us. When we remember that He has told us of these things, that bearing witness to Him will pit us against a world and against a sinful flesh within that hate Him, yet will have us walking in the way of eternal life, then we are able to look and behold the stark contrast between His goodness, His words, His witness, and the imitation life peddled and demanded by a world that is ultimately only in love with itself.
So, do not worry if you see the world seemingly make headway against Christ and His Church. Your role is to stand firm and to bear faithful witness to Him. Genuine faith must be revealed among us who dwell on the earth. Do not fear when persecution, and even death, come knocking on the doors of our churches or our homes. Keep the faith. Bear witness to Christ in all that you do, even when it’s only God Who sees, for the One Who has redeemed you isn’t One limited by creation, vying to sit atop it all, grasping for temporal power. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ, your Savior, and He steadily wields it for you, especially by the Holy Spirit in the forgiveness of your sins. You belong to the One Who holds all power and authority in His hand. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. History itself, confirming the testimony of the Holy Scriptures and of Christ, declares that not even the gates of hell itself will prevail against the Church and the Chief Cornerstone upon Whom she is built and stands firm. His Church has grown all the more as time after time evil has sought to silence her and while the world’s kingdoms have come and gone. The Holy Spirit, bearing witness to Jesus Christ, is Whom you have seen through the history of the world where in one place our brothers and sisters have soaked the ground with their martyred blood, yet up somewhere else another voice arose, bearing witness to the Holy One of God, to the Good News of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of the sin of the whole world. Though battles may be lost, the war has been won. Lost battles are but merciful calls for us to wake-up, to repent of our sins, and to cling to the true witness to Christ by the Holy Spirit, that in Him alone do we have forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Christ is the world’s Redeemer. May the witness of our lives ever bear witness to this glorious, eternal Truth!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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