27 June 2018
Text: Luke 12:8-12 (2 Sam 7:17-29, Eph 6:10-17)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Today,
the Church remembers St. Cyril, who was the Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt
during the years 412-444. His time, like
our own, was a turbulent age, with a lot of fighting over the crucial question:
“Who is Jesus?”
For
no matter what era we live in, that is always the most important question: “Who
is Jesus?” Our response to this question
is not to be taken lightly. Nor was it
in the fifth century.
While
others were watering down Christ and thus watering down the Gospel, Bishop
Cyril stood firm. He knew very well our
Lord’s warning that we heard anew in today’s Gospel: “Everyone who acknowledges
Me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God,
but the one who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”
This
is where we are today, dear friends. It
is more difficult to confess Christ today in our country than it ever has been
since its founding. For the first time
in American history, Christians are subjected to a soft persecution: being
pressured to renounce Jesus by our hostile culture, being bullied to act
outside of the Christian faith by our increasingly tyrannical courts, and being
marginalized and impressed into silence by our politically-correct governments.
The
easy thing is to remain silent, or to outright deny one’s Christianity. The hard thing is to confess Christ and let
the chips fall. Canada has begun to
revoke the accreditations of law schools run by Christian institutions that
uphold the traditional, common law, natural, and biblical definition of marriage.
In our own country, respectable
Christian ministries are being shunned by banks and other businesses because
Christians are today accused of “hate speech” by very powerful people simply
for confessing the Word of God, just as we were already doing for four
centuries before Cyril’s time.
So
will we continue to confess Christ before men in these last days? Or will we blaspheme the Holy Spirit? St. Cyril surely knew the Lord’s admonition: “When
they bring you before the synagogues and rulers and the authorities, do not be
anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the
Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
St.
Cyril had much to say about his Lord Jesus Christ, and never pulled punches,
never held back, never counted the political cost of his confession. He made more than a few enemies in both church
and state. Some heretical bishops
declared him a heretic and referred to him as a “monster, born and educated for
the destruction of the church.” It’s no
wonder that our Lutheran confessions quote St. Cyril twice. For being called a heretic by heretics, and
being called a monster by monsters is just something faithful Christians of
every age and tradition can expect.
The
more things change, the more they stay the same.
Cyril’s
biggest fight involved whether or not the blessed virgin Mary is “the mother of
God.” The heretic Nestorius condemned
such language. But Cyril pointed out
that if Jesus is God, we have no choice but to call Mary the “mother of God”,
saying:
“That
anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the Mother of God
fills me with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord
Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him! Our Lord’s disciples may not
have used those exact words, but they delivered to us the belief those words
enshrine, and this has also been taught us by the holy fathers.”
And
this is the same thing that the Book of Concord says, and that Lutheran
churches are all committed to preaching and teaching – including Salem Lutheran
Church. In that sense, we are not only
Lutherans but also Cyrillians.
Like
many of the faithful church fathers of old, St. Cyril was removed from his
service as bishop and sent into exile by the heretics who seized the reins of
the church’s bureaucracy. But Cyril
stood firm, wearing the “whole armor of God” and wielding the “sword of the
Spirit which is the Word of God”, confessing the faith once delivered to the
saints. He chose to be driven out rather
than compromise with false doctrine, rather than to confess a false Christ.
In
due time, Bishop Cyril was recognized as St. Cyril, as well as being named a
doctor of the church. He is lovingly
called Pope Cyril by the Coptic Christians, a few of whom still bravely confess
Christ in Egypt today. Cyril’s
theological writings are also still studied to this very day in Christian
seminaries and other schools.
And
while St. Cyril wore many hats, so to speak: that of a patriarch, the bishop of
one of the most important cities in the Empire, that of a theologian: a writer
and doctor of the church, that of the confessor of the faith, suffering for the
sake of Christ, let us not forget that Cyril was first and foremost a pastor, a
preacher, a giver of soul-care to the members of his congregation. St. Cyril proclaimed the law to those who
needed to repent, and he proclaimed the Gospel to the contrite. St. Cyril administered the sacraments to his
parishioners great and small, young and old, those who could read and those who
could not, those who understood the theological controversies of his day, and
those who could not. He taught the
faithful to love the Lord and to be blessed by His gifts. And that is what every pastor, bishop, and
theologian is called to do.
St.
Cyril has advice for us who also live in perilous times, in a culture hostile
to the truth of Jesus Christ, of Him who is both God and man, who was crucified
for us, whose blood was shed for our atonement, whose body rose from death and
walked out of the very tomb that was impotent to contain Him. As every true preacher of the true faith, St.
Cyril points us to Christ, and He shares Christ where He Himself promises to be
found: in preaching and in sacraments.
On
this day in which we remember our dear brother, let us allow him to preach to
us from this pulpit, and let us rejoice to allow his proclamation to ring in
our ears yet again. Listen to the
pastoral wisdom of St. Cyril, whose life and ministry were a testimony to our
Lord Jesus Christ:
“If
the poison of pride is swelling up in you, turn to the Eucharist; and that
Bread, Which is your God humbling and disguising Himself, will teach you
humility. If the fever of selfish greed rages in you, feed on this Bread; and
you will learn generosity. If the cold wind of coveting withers you, hasten to
the Bread of Angels; and charity will come to blossom in your heart. If you
feel the itch of intemperance, nourish yourself with the Flesh and Blood of
Christ, Who practiced heroic self-control during His earthly life; and you will
become temperate. If you are lazy and sluggish about spiritual things,
strengthen yourself with this heavenly Food; and you will grow fervent. Lastly,
if you feel scorched by the fever of impurity, go to the banquet of the Angels;
and the spotless Flesh of Christ will make you pure and chaste.” Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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