Sermon: St. Ignatius of Antioch - 2018

17 October 2018

Text: John 12:24-26

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

It has become trendy in many churches – Lutheran churches included – to refer to those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb as “Jesus-Followers” rather than “Christians” or “disciples.”  Focus groups and market research suggest that the old names are a turnoff for modern-day unbelievers.  And so, it seems, we must change with the times, reinvent ourselves, forget the old, embrace the new, and stop being so traditional.  A popular edgy bishop named John Shelby Spong wrote a book called Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  Bishop Spong doesn’t believe that Jesus was born of a virgin or rose from the dead.  He doesn’t believe that the Bible is God’s Word, or that we are saved by the blood of Christ shed on the cross.  He thinks that most of the Bible, including the life of Jesus, is a myth designed to teach us to be, among other things, accepting of same sex marriage and other such things.  He doesn’t believe that Christianity is about sin and redemption, about dying and rising again.  

But when we stop talking about discipleship, we stop talking about discipline (something our modern culture hates).  When we refer to “Jesus followers,” it sounds like Christianity is as easy as friending or following someone on social media.

And so we’re doing something that many trendy pastors of big, wealthy, edgy churches would disapprove of.  For we are doing what our Lord said to do: “Take, eat.  Take, drink… in memory of Me.”  It isn’t about us and what we like, but rather it is all about Jesus.  And when Jesus is central to the life of the church – whether in this sanctuary, at your job or school, around your table, in your community, among your family, and out in the world – you will see discipleship and Christianity lived out as it was in the case of St. Ignatius of Antioch.

The church of Antioch was founded by St. Peter – and Ignatius became the third bishop of this important city.  Antioch was the first place the term “Christians” was applied to disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ignatius (as a young man) was a parishioner of the Apostle John.  

Bishop Ignatius was arrested and condemned to death for the sake of his faith – which was illegal in those days.  Bishop Ignatius was made to endure a long final journey to Rome in order to be executed as part of a “reality entertainment show” in the stadium in which Christians – young and old, men and women, even the elderly and infants – were fed to hungry lions.  During his extradition to the capital city, Ignatius wrote seven letters to various churches, encouraging them in the faith.

In his Epistle to the Romans, the bishop wrote: “I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, the Heavenly Bread, the Bread of life, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the Drink of God, namely His Blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.”

What a great example for all of us today, more than one thousand nine hundred years after St. Ignatius became a martyr for the faith of Jesus Christ!  For what does it mean to follow Jesus?  It doesn’t mean tapping a button on your phone.  It doesn’t mean going to church when you feel like it or being entertained while you’re there.  It means that your entire being is wrapped around your Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.  Where He is, there you are.  Where His body and blood are, not even hungry lions could keep you away.  Where His Word is proclaimed, that is where “incorruptible love and eternal life” are to be found.  And that is where Christians are found.  And that unbreakable chain to the Lord Jesus Christ goes with you everywhere you go, whether to work, to school, to your kitchen table – or even to your death for following the Lord if you are called to give such a testimony.

Ignatius understood the Lord’s preaching when Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”

The Christian life is about Christ and Him crucified.  His blood is indeed “incorruptible love and eternal life.”  And Jesus does not hoard this love and life, but sheds it upon the cross and shares it.  He bathes our sin-soaked and death-laden earth with His very life and life-giving divinity that have come to us in His flesh and blood on the cross.  And His gift of life doesn’t stop there, but continues to come to us in His holy body and blood of the Eucharist, including His flesh, the “Bread of God, the Heavenly Bread, the Bread of life.”

So much of this life centers around food: for we work to earn money to buy food.  We go to school to get a job to buy food.  Much of our day is devoted to preparing and eating meals: both the ordinary and the feasts.  Much of our society centers on food: festivals and celebrations, ethnic cuisine and social gatherings.  There are entire channels on television devoted to food.  Food is so plentiful in our country that an alarming number of people suffer with obesity.  But as much as we love our food (and, dear friends, we should enjoy and relish our daily bread that the Lord provides us), think about what all of this food is compared to the Holy Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, that we partake of together on this evening!  Think about the faith and the joy that sustained Ignatius while he was transported in chains, and when he was pushed out onto the floor of the stadium, and as the beasts pounced upon him.

This is what it means to be a disciple: to understand that the Lord Himself is that grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies.  And His death upon the cross and His burial in the tomb is the sowing of the seed of everlasting life!  For the death and resurrection of Jesus did not remain alone.  Not only is Bishop Spong wrong about the resurrection of Jesus, he is also wrong about our own resurrections.  For the death of Jesus “bears much fruit.”  We are that fruit.  The wheat is planted, it germinates, it grows, it matures, it is harvested – and it is made into bread that nourishes us for life.  Some of that bread is sanctified by the Word of God and becomes that “Bread of God, the Heavenly Bread, the Bread of life” that sustained Ignatius, and sustains all of us Christians, all of us disciples who follow our Lord to death and to the resurrection.

For like Ignatius, we bear the promise of Jesus, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  We are pilgrims here, strangers and aliens.  We are just passing through this desert.  Our true home is eternity: the new heaven and the new earth, in our new bodies that will bear much fruit after we are also sown into the earth.

For if you want to follow Jesus, you cannot do it by clicking a button on your phone.  Jesus has called you.  He bids you “Follow Me!”  For you were baptized into His name and the Holy Spirit has drawn you inexorably to Him.  “If anyone serves Me,” says our blessed Lord, “he must follow Me; and where I am, there will My servant be also.”

This is why Ignatius served at the altar, font, and pulpit in Antioch.  This is why we are gathered around the altar, font, and pulpit in Gretna.  We are here to hear the Word of Jesus and to partake in the Holy Sacrament.  And like Ignatius, the Word of God transforms us unto eternal life and empowers us to confess Jesus before a hostile world, even a world that hates us and would like to see us all fed to beasts and wiped out.

“If anyone serves Me,” says Jesus, “the Father will honor him.”

St. Ignatius of Antioch is honored by the church, as a bishop, as a preacher, as a theologian, but most of all, as a Christian disciple.  Well done, faithful servant, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch.  Thanks be to God for His example, his own seed falling into the ground, his testimony (which is what “martyrdom” actually means), his testimony of Jesus: the Seed who falls into the ground that we might rise!  Let us continue to joyfully and steadfastly partake of the “incorruptible love and eternal life” of Christ Jesus our Lord!  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.