[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon The Sixth Sunday of Easter 13 May 2007 "Be Courageous!" John 16:22-33 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Confirmation sermons are often heavy with the Law, all well-intentioned, but heavy with the Law. "Do this! Do that! Be this way!" Some might call them "Gospel exhortations," but they sound pretty much like the Law to me. It's easy to understand why this is so. These catechumens have come to the end of their formal [read: mandatory] Christian education. They've completed the bare minimum of what it takes to be admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar. To be sure, they're not complete! So we add our admonitions, but another word for admonitions is warnings and that sounds like the Law. There is a place for such encouragement and admonition. We see that Jesus did it with his disciples on the night when he was betrayed. He had much to say to them about what would happen in the next few days and beyond. Yet, the overall tone of Jesus' words is positive. In spite of everything that would happen, he tells them: "But take heart; I have overcome the world." We could paraphrase that by saying, "Be courageous; I've already won the victory."

Our Lord's words come from the same chapter as last week's Gospel reading. In fact, they pick up right where that reading left off. We're right in the middle of some words about having joy. Now Jesus was a realist. He wasn't one to blow sunshine up someone's nose when there wasn't any. Jesus told them that they would be sorrowful. Their whole world was going to come crashing down in a few short hours, but that was not reason for them to lose their joy.

I'm not going to tell you, "Be happy!" because that would really be Law. It would be like me telling you to be happy when you just failed a catechetical exam! I've seen your faces when you didn't pass, and there was no joy on them! It depended on your studying hard to pass or to recite memory work correctly. The joy that Jesus directs you to is different because he has done something to get it. Jesus came into this world as a human being to earn your forgiveness, life, and salvation. You are to be happy because Jesus has forgiven your sin. You are to have joy because you received that forgiveness in Holy Baptism, that day when your life changed forever.

That joy doesn't depend on what the world gives or takes away, but on Christ. So many people have it all wrong because they think that their joy depends on whether they have things, but things cannot make us happy. Sometimes, when you get a new thing, you're really happy, but that joy fades after a while and that new thing becomes old. It really couldn't keep your joy, but Jesus says that you are to have a joy that is full, that is, the kind that doesn't depend on you to make it or get it. This kind of joy is a gift from God. God puts joy into your Baptism, your Absolution, your forgiveness in the Sacrament of the Altar. It's there whether you know it or not.

Up to this time Jesus had often spoken to his disciples in parables, figures of speech, to illustrate something very important., and very often they didn't understand. Their minds were sometimes too dense to get it. You know what I mean, don't you? You've been there often during our two years of instruction. In spite of patient explanation, you just didn't get it! That's not really a mean comment, but a description of why you need to be catechumens your whole life. The Christian life is a constant learning process. You learn new things and you begin to understand old things that you knew. Some things you won't really understand until you get to be adults and your life experience catches up with what you've learned.

As Jesus explained to them yet again that he had come from the Father for their benefit and that the Father loved them and had sent Jesus to them and that he would complete his work and go back to the Father, the light finally went on in the attics of their minds! "Ah, now you are speaking plainly . . . Now we know that you know all things . . . this is why we believe that you came from God."

It was as if the veil were lifted from their minds. They finally began to "get it," but not entirely. Their catechesis was not yet over. There was much more for them to learn, but at least, they had gotten to this point. They would soon be ready for bigger things. But at this point they finally understood that the Father loved them because of Jesus.

It is the greatest blessing of your life to know that the Father in heaven loves you, not for who you are, but for who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. It's true that God loves the world, but he doesn't love the world because of anything lovable in it! How could he? Listen to the news every day and think about how much love-liness there is in the world. One of the most depressing activities one can have is to listen to or watch a 24 hour news station. After a while one has to turn it off because it is so depressing with all the news of our world. People simply aren't very lovable. You learned to confess that you haven't always had God's love in your heart and actions with the result that you haven't loved others as God commands.

But God the Father loves you because of Christ. That's why God loves the world. He loves it because of what Christ has done in redeeming it. Jesus laid down his innocent life on behalf of the guilty-that's all of us! He paid the price of our redemption, "not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death," as you learned it from Luther. All of God's anger over this world's sins came crashing down on Jesus on the cross. There he was abandoned by all of his friends, and even by his Father in heaven because he carried our sins there. God turned his back on his Son so that he would never turn his back on you.

One of the greatest challenges adolescents face is despair. So many young people give up when they discover how bad the world is, or when they think themselves unloved. All of us want to be loved and need to be loved, but it would be completely wrong to believe that God doesn't love you. Remember that God doesn't love you because of you, but because of Christ. God loves you in Christ Jesus! That does not change, ever! Even despair cannot separate you from God's love in Christ. So says the Apostle Paul when he writes to the Romans:

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)

You have learned the truth with the veil off. You do not have a God who is angry with you. You know differently! Don't let anybody ever convince you otherwise! You have learned the truth, and that truth is in a person, Jesus Christ. His work is done. The fruits of his redemption he now distributes to the world in Christ, in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. You receive his love by faith.

I am under no illusions that all of you are going to be completely loyal to your vows this morning. In fact, it would be truthful to say that no one who has ever taken them has kept them as they should be kept. That's in the part where we'll use the word "intend," such as, "Do you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?" [LSB 273]. And you will answer, I do, by the grace of God, sincerely. But you'll be like the disciples. Later that evening they all ran away when Jesus was arrested and disowned him. They hid because they were ashamed of him and of what had happened.

Jesus knows that you'll fail just like Peter, James, John, and all the rest. He didn't tell them this to make them fail, but to help them understand that he would die to forgive even such sins as their disloyalty. The devil, the world, and their sinful flesh would be too much for them to conquer. That's the way it is. That's why I said that just giving you exhortations to be faithful, be happy, be courageous, won't work. It's only when Christ forgives you that you have his joy. It's only because of Christ that you don't fall into total despair. You know that he has established the Christian Church for this reason, to be the very place where you come to receive his gifts. Here in the Divine Service the Word and Sacraments predominate. We don't do any of that "happy-clappy" stuff that others do because that won't make your joy last. Instead, we have the Word proclaimed and the Sacraments administered according to Jesus' institution.

I know that you remember that definition of a Sacrament:

"A Sacrament is a ceremony or act in which God offers us the content of the promise joined to the ceremony." Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXIV.18
"If we define Sacraments as rites which have the command of God and to which the promise of grace has been added, we can easily determine which are Sacraments in the strict sense.
"The genuine Sacraments, therefore, are Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Absolution (which is the Sacrament of Penitence), for these rites have the commandment of God and the promise of grace, which is the heart of the New Testament." Apology of the Augsburg Confession XIII.3,4

Ah, the heart of the New Testament is the forgiveness of your sins! It is exactly the reason why Jesus came to be one of us and why he went to the cross. And now he distributes his forgiveness in Word and Sacrament. Here he invites you to come, over and over and over again, to receive forgiveness for all your sins. The Sacrament of the Altar is sometimes called "the pilgrim's food." You need to eat regularly, which is another way of saying that you need forgiveness regularly. You need what Jesus puts here-his forgiveness. And if you have forgiveness, then you have life and salvation. And when you have these gifts of God, then you have real joy, the kind that nobody can take away from you.

Life will get messy and difficult for you in the future. I have no doubt about that. You'll need Christ and all that he wants to give you in his gifts. You'll also need to know that the troubles you experience in life are not forever. Jesus comforted his disciples by telling them that even though they would have trouble in the world, he had already won the victory. The world would even kill them all, except for John. Where's the joy in that? It is in the knowledge that physical death is the very worst that the world can do to us, but that death isn't the end of us because we belong to Christ, and Christ has won the victory over the world. No one can take that from you!

Christ has won and is living and reigning on behalf of his Bride, the Church. You heard about that in the Second Reading today. You heard about the splendor and glory of our Lord's heaven, the place that he has prepared for those who belong to him. There our Lord's victory is celebrated forever and ever. There nothing ever interrupts the joy we will have by being in his presence forever. There the joy never fades or goes away.

Joshua, Samantha, David, Olivia, Kyle, Ben, and Nick, Jesus tells you to "Be Courageous!" That courage isn't something you have to produce, but Jesus gives it to you because Jesus has conquered for you. He lives and reigns to all eternity for you! He promises to go with you throughout your life and has promised to forgive all your sins. Listen once more to Jesus:

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33, ESV)