For you to be a disciple like those of the Scriptures, therefore, is to live daily under the influence of the Word of Jesus. Your heart and mind consciously want to do just that and seek every opportunity to be with Jesus in preaching, teaching, and Sacrament. Jesus himself said to the disciples who had chosen to follow him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31ff). To be a disciple is to have your priorities adjusted so that work, play, and even family are governed by and focused on hearing Jesus and receiving His gifts. 

God the Father, working through the Word of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit, will make, accomplish, and do in you what is needful. And by repenting you, forgiving your sin, and amending your heart, the world around you will begin to change. The good measure given to you will overflow in the same kind for those around you. As you are forgiven by God, you forgive those who sin against you. As you are shown mercy by God, so mercy will overflow for those near you. As God removes the plank from your eye, you will compassionately and in love be given to assist your neighbor with the speck in theirs.

Our open rebellion against our fathers and squandering of the inheritance they bequeathed to us cannot separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus. Our refusal to hear God’s Word and gladly hear and learn it can. Because that Word is life and light. When Jesus speaks with the Father’s authority, He reveals all our sinful rejection. But more than that, He reveals the love of God the Father in giving His Son for the bloody atonement of our sin and the sins of the world. His Word restores what we have forsaken. His Word clothes us again and again in Jesus’ righteousness. His Word sets before us a feast of forgiveness, the body and blood of the Word made flesh, Jesus. His Word resurrects the dead to life again. His Word forgives our rebellion against the heavenly inheritance we have wasted in prodigal living and restores them to us again.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). The means which the Spirit uses is the Word. He does not work apart from Jesus and endeavors only to give you Jesus in the Word. He teaches you all that Jesus taught and reminds you daily of what Jesus said. It is the work of the Spirit that brings you, Jesus Christ, in the Word. Jesus speaks and deals with us still today in the Word. And where the Word is, there is the Spirit, living and active. The word of forgiveness in Jesus’s name is the living Word.

Jesus has not failed you and will not forget you or any of those whom He has called by name in Holy Baptism. He is even now moving heaven and earth to restore and renew your trust in His Word. He overthrows anyone or anything that you have given fear, love, or trust. God will be your God, and you will be His people. He sends the Promise of the Father to you to call you back home, to gather you again to the Christian church, to open your eyes again to the only way of life and escape from death, and to set you apart again as trusting people of God. 

We are not stray, inexplicable pieces but together with Christ, alive, in motion, sent to live and share the life of Christ, growing, changing, shaping ourselves to each person's need so we may have life and have it more abundantly, the joy that cannot be taken away. Remember your Baptism. Live your Baptism. You were born again; new life is given. You are being born each day. Each day pregnant with the next, even the days that seem to deny you and God, for we, too, are going to the Father. Quickened by the Spirit, we go with Christ, who promised, "I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you." (John 16:22).

But Jesus, your good shepherd, has come that you may live and that you may live more abundantly. He leads you out into the world to enjoy God’s creation, be free to roam and feed upon the hills and drink from the springs. His fold doesn’t stay in pen, but He opens the gate and leads you out into the wide world. 

Jesus hasn’t stopped breathing the Spirit upon all of selfish, rebellious humanity. He breathed the Spirit upon you in your Baptism. The Spirit continues to breathe on you, the once slain but now alive army of God. The Spirit gives you to listen to Jesus, to hear His Word, and receive the gifts that Word gives. Jesus tells you to touch His flesh in the Holy Sacrament. He gives you to hunger and thirst for His righteousness, drinking deeply from the well of His forgiveness. “Peace be with you” is proclaimed to you in the forgiveness of sins in His body and blood of His Supper.

You either have all of Jesus or you have none of Him at all. The resurrection witnesses knew what they had shared. The accusation that they had made it all up they could endure. And they had to face persecution, they were beaten, crucified, and stoned. Why would they do that for a lie, a hoax, or even under some mass delusion. But they could not be silenced. St. Peter and John themselves confessed before the Sanhedrin, "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) 

We can pray confident that if the Lord gives us a tomorrow, it is good and means fruitful labor for us. And if He gives us to sleep the sleep of death, no matter. He has already transformed our grave into a quiet resting place, a soft bed undefiled. Just as Joseph’s new sepulchre, the stone, the seal, nor the guard could hold Jesus, so also our tomb won’t hold us either. “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.” Even if buried under six feet of earth, our Lord Jesus will awaken us, dragging us out of the earth, breathing life into us, and carrying us into the Resurrection. We will follow the Light that no darkness can overcome.

This Lententide, we have been learning to lament from the Psalms. Our final Psalm is possibly the most difficult to pray. It is arguably the darkest. It even stands among the most somber compositions in all of Holy Scripture, comparable to the overcast pages of Job and Ecclesiastes.It’s hard to imagine how to reconcile such dark tones with evangelical hope. The Gospel must predominate in Christian preaching, even on this night as Christ lay dead in the tomb. Some might even think the sentiments of this psalm too dismal for it to serve as a Christian prayer at all. The hymnal committee saw no place for it in Lutheran worship and left it out.

Moses and the Prophets preached to reform their conscience, call them to repentance, and amend their life. But they refused to listen and double-downed in error and foolishness. That’s why they enlisted the help of Rome and stirred up a mob of people with bad consciences to cry out for Jesus’ death. They “shot the messenger” and crucified Jesus.

God is only present for you where Jesus' body is presented to you. God goes so deep into the flesh that he gives his weight to sinful men and women, boys and girls with such reckless, loving abandon that you're embarrassed for him. His love is so great that He lays down His life for you, offering that divine love and life to even you. He lays His body and blood down on this altar abundantly and without a hint of frugality for you to receive as your manna in the wilderness, or the Passover Lamb roasted over the fire of God’s wrath, giving you escape.

Don’t be afraid to speak directly and clearly to God in prayer. Name your enemies. And if you’re wrong and they will be converted, thanks be to God. Pray God to defeat them and repent them. And if not, pray that He destroy them. Your life and faith depend on Him ending the foul reign of enemies physically and spiritually. 

Well, that escalated quickly! Why had no one diffused the situation? Why didn’t anyone step in long before it got so out of hand? This temple yard spat has devolved into violence. How did we get to the point that Jesus was no longer a curiosity but is now a threat that must be silenced at any cost?

On the mountain, on the other side of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus has gathered His church. She follows Him where ever He goes. She trusts in Him for everything she needs. Her priority is to receive God’s forgiving Word in Jesus. Her primary care and nurture, handing over the love, mercy, compassion, and long-suffering of Jesus. All who are gathered to Jesus nurse from the Church’s consoling breast. She and her children go with her bridegroom where He leads, knowing He will provide for her.

Life in the Lord’s house, His church, is no different. Everything we think, say, and do in our life together at Beautiful Savior goes in two directions. It all begins when God leads, draws, and gathers us around Jesus’ gifts of life and salvation in Word and Sacraments in Divine Service. And, having received God’s gifts, He calls, sends, and directs us to go out into our daily vocations in life to love and serve others. Every congregation has rituals. A good question to ask ourselves is, “Does the ritual serve the Gospel, proclaim Jesus Crucified, and point us to his saving work, or does it point us to ourselves and our work?”