Sermon: Salem 150th Anniversary Observation – 2023

28 Oct 2023

Text: 1 Kings 8:22-30

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

King Solomon built a temple, a house of God, for our God who needs no house.  For indeed, “heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain [Him],” let alone a series of buildings built at the corner of 4^th and Amelia over the past century and a half.  “But,” asks Solomon, “will God indeed dwell on the earth?”

Yes, indeed, dear friends.  God dwells on earth.  The God who could not be contained by heaven itself permitted Himself to be contained in flesh – even a single celled embryo in the flesh of His mother’s womb.  “For us men and for our salvation,” God was contained not only in a womb, but also in a tomb – having been restrained upon a cross by nails.  God was nourished by blood – blood which now nourishes us unto eternal life.  God comes to us in His Word – proclaimed in this holy house.  God comes to us in His Sacraments: by means of water and bread and wine contained under this roof and in this sanctuary, in this holy house.

God needs no building in which to dwell, but we do, dear friends.  And in His infinite mercy, God comes to us where we are.

We rejoice in the anniversary of our congregation, and its continual gathering here at this place for more than one hundred and fifty years.  We give thanks “for all the saints who from their labors rest,” saints who sacrificed for the sake of our congregation, including many the sainted pastors like the reverend fathers Gottlieb Gruber, Adolph Wismar, and Eugene Schmid.  Many of us remember our sainted ancestors, and in some cases, our sainted descendants, whose bodies have lain in state in this house of God, who now await being awaked at the resurrection.  We honor our fathers and mothers according to the flesh, and our forebears according to the Spirit, who gathered here at this font for baptism, this altar for the Lord’s Supper, this lectern to hear the Word, and this pulpit to hear the proclamation of the Gospel.

But this celebration is not about us.  As King Solomon’s father, King David, wrote as the Psalmist under the Spirit’s inspiration: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and your faithfulness!”  The glory is not unto us, and not unto our ancestors, not unto Pastor Gruber, not unto King Solomon and not unto King David, but rather, as we sing in every Sunday Mass: “Glory be to God on high.” 

We give glory to our God who permitted Himself to be contained in the fleshly temple of His own body, in His mother’s womb, in the Jordan River, on the cross, in the tomb, and in His glorious resurrected body that appeared to the disciples for forty days before ascending to the Father.  We give glory to our Lord Jesus Christ who comes to us miraculously in His most holy body and blood, according to His Word and promise, and we give glory to Him who is coming again to raise the dead, “whose kingdom will have no end.”

For there is no God like Him “in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to [His] servants.”  And He listens “to the plea of [His] servants.”  And, dear friends, when He hears our prayers, He responds.  As Solomon confessed, so do we: “And when you hear,” O God, “forgive.” 

God took flesh to erase our debt and eradicate our sin, to restore our world from its brokenness.  In the words of the hymnist: “Thou camest to our hall of death, O Christ to breathe our poisoned air, To drink for us the dark despair That strangled our reluctant breath.”

For though God permits Himself to be contained by these walls under our roof (though we are not worthy, but at His Word, we are healed), the church is ultimately not a structure made of stone, but rather of living stones: the royal and priestly people in whom the Spirit dwells.  God Himself is our mighty fortress, and we, the church, take refuge in Him.  We confess a church that is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic,” just as we have from the day when our Lord Jesus Christ breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone his sin, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

The church is indeed one, even though she is broken and battered on this side of glory.  She finds her unity in her confession of the Holy Trinity, of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, in the cross, in forgiveness, “in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  And we pray with the hymnist: “Breathe on Thy cloven Church once more, that in these gray and latter days There may be those whose life is praise, Each life a high doxology To Father, Son, and unto Thee.”

The church is indeed holy, even though she is flawed and filled with sinners on this side of glory.  She is holy because Christ is holy, having come to sanctify us, in the words of the hymnist: “Thy strong Word bespeaks us righteous; Bright with Thine own holiness, Glorious now, we press toward glory, And our lives our hopes confess.”

The church is indeed catholic, even though she is often like a squabbling family rent by faction and division.  For with the hymnist we proclaim: “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is His new creation By water and the Word.  From heaven He came and sought her To be His holy bride; With His own blood He bought her, And for her life He died.”

The church is indeed apostolic, even though the world, and even many in the church, forget that our faith is historical and inherited, given to us as a gift by those who came before us in an unbroken chain back to our Lord’s chosen apostles.  We rejoice in the apostles and those who followed in their train – especially on this day of remembrance of our own apostolic congregation, singing with the hymnist: “Oh, may Thy soldiers, faithful true and bold, Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old And win with them the victor’s crown of gold!  Alleluia, alleluia.”

Let us continue in the good confession of the church, as the church, and in the church, giving thanks for our forebears, but most of all, giving praise and glory to our Lord Jesus Christ for His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Let us pray for the continuation of God’s mercy and providence, that barring the return of our Lord, saints yet unborn (even as we will all be in glory), will gather here to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of this parish, likewise giving thanks and praise to God alone by means of the blood of Christ, reading these same Holy Scriptures, but perhaps singing in words of hymns yet unwritten and unsung, but singing nevertheless with us, with angels, with archangels, and all the company of heaven, the high eternal doxology: 

God, the Father, light-creator,
To Thee laud and honor be.
To Thee, Light of Light begotten,
Praise be sung eternally.
Holy Spirit, light-revealer,
Glory, glory be to Thee.
Mortals, angels, now and ever
Praise the Holy Trinity!

Amen. 

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