Sermon: Exaudi (Easter 7) - 2019

2 June 2019

Text: John 15:26-16:4 (Ezek 36:22-28, 1 Pet 4:7-14)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

We find ourselves much like the apostles after our Lord ascended into heaven.  He remains with us in His Word and Sacraments, but we can’t see Him face to face.  And so we pray: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!  Alleluia.  Your face, Lord, I will seek.  Do not hide Your face from me.  Alleluia.”

The Apostles were warned of the dark days that lie ahead.  But they were also promised the coming of “the Helper… the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father.”  The Holy Spirit would indeed come and “bear witness about” our Lord.  The Holy Spirit would embolden and empower the apostles to preach the Gospel in an intolerant culture that claimed to be tolerant.  Our fathers and mothers in the faith suffered persecution for their confession of Christ.  Jesus warned all of us Christians of the coming of the time “when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”  This was true in their day, and this is true today, as radical Islamists are slaughtering Christians in numbers even greater than the Roman Empire.

St. Peter was one of those apostles, their leader, in fact.  And we all know of Peter’s failures and weaknesses.  And we also know what happened to Peter when the Holy Spirit came – he became courageous in his preaching and fearless in his confession of Christ.

Peter wrote to us, dear friends, in the epistle that we heard again today, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.”  No matter how crazy the world becomes, no matter how much we are hated, we must “keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”  We are to show hospitality to other Christians, for they are our family.  And all of this is so that “in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

And so St. Peter reminds us not to be “surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.”  Instead, in these dark days when everyone around us seems to be going mad, “rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.  If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

What this means, dear friends, is that when we are abused by people who hate us, when we are insulted by people who are warped by the ways of the world, we should be honored – just as a soldier is honored to be placed in the front lines of battle.  He may not enjoy the fight, but to be placed in the front line means that he has been judged to be a true warrior.  It is a matter of honor to be given the privilege to wage war upon the enemy.

And we have, dear friends.  We have been born into such a time.  Our culture and country are going mad.  They are filled with rage at the Church because she has the courage to say what marriage is, what a man is, what a woman is, and that all lives matter – no matter the color of the skin, or whether the human being is suffering from dementia on his death bed, or if he is vulnerably living inside his mother’s womb.  We are loathed and hated for saying what is obvious and what the Church has said from the beginning.  

And why do they do this, dear friends?  Why are they so deluded and enraged?  Our Lord says it is “because they have not known the Father, nor Me.”  But He tells us these things, dear friends, so “that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.”

It has been given to us to figuratively storm the beaches and take up our weapons to repel the invader.  We have been entrusted with the Gospel and given the honor to defend that which is good, true, and beautiful in an age that celebrates the evil, the distorted, the ugly, and even the dead.  We are the bearers of light and life in this dark world, and we will push back against the darkness, even as the apostles did – even if it means a cross for us, as it did for St. Peter.

We are not alone in this fight, dear friends.  We have the Holy Spirit that was poured out upon us in Holy Baptism.  We come here to where the Word of God strengthens us for battle, and where the body and blood of the Lord hardens us for the fight.

God the Father speaks to us through the prophet Ezekiel, here and now, by means of the Holy Spirit, when He says: “And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My just decrees.  You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”

We have been given a monumental task to bear the torch of truth and the sword of the Word of God in perilous times.  But this is where we are, dear friends.  This is the task we are called to undertake, and what the Lord in His wisdom entrusts us to carry out.  And just as He emboldened and empowered the apostles and the men, women, and children who stood up defiantly against the enemy in the earliest days of the Church, so too does He embolden and empower us, dear brothers and sisters.

In the late 1940s, a college professor (who was also an Episcopal priest), Dr. Chad Walsh, wrote an insightful little book called Early Christians of the 21^st Century.  He believed that as the culture was decaying (even in those days) that Christians living in the year 2000 and beyond would face similar challenges as the early Church.  We live in a culture that no longer values life, that no longer believes in God, that no longer thinks that there is absolute truth.  Popular music is rotten, the theater (which for us includes movies and TV) are pornographic, and things have decayed in politics and law to the point where calling a man a man or a woman a woman can get you fined or fired or even jailed in some places.  

We live in a culture of idolatry and selfishness, of narcissism, of license, and a rejection of tradition.  And it is our task to wage a peculiar kind of war, not in which we kill our enemies, but rather love our enemies, by showing them a “more excellent way.”  And in this day and age, telling someone that he is wrong is a good way to make you an outcast.

But when we do so, dear friends, we are loving our neighbor.  For some of them will repent.  Some of them will see the truth, pursue it, and will find Jesus and His atoning blood, and will come to eternal life.  That’s the Gospel that we are called to share.

This is our task.  This is our battle.  This is our D-Day and our Lexington and Concord.  We are called to courageously confess Jesus Christ and the truth – even truths that are unpopular.  We are called to repudiate untruth, even as we all renounced the devil, his works and his ways, at our baptism.  Those vows mean something.  They are not idle ritual.  And the vows that the Lord makes to us are likewise powerful.  For the Word of God is sharper than a two edged sword, and His Word never returns void.  

Remember, dear brother, dear sister, you are baptized!  You have been claimed by Christ.  You have been fortified by the Holy Spirit.  You have been called and approved by the Father.  This is not your doing, but rather by grace.  It is by His doing, and by the mysterious working of the Spirit.  “You are blessed,” says St. Peter, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

We Christians know the truth – even as the world around us teeters on complete insanity.  We understand that God created an orderly universe, even as the world descends into chaos.  We know that there is a right and a wrong, and we know when we fall into sin, and we know when we need forgiveness and mercy – even as the world cannot conceive of either sin or mercy.

And we are called to give glory to God, in word and in deed, in our confession and in our courage, in our love for our enemies and our desire that they come to a knowledge of the truth, and in the love that we have for our brothers and sisters in the household of faith, in our hospitality and mutual support.

And so, we pray yet again for strength: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!  Alleluia.  Your face, Lord, I will seek.  Do not hide Your face from me.  Alleluia.  The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

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